Follow TV Tropes

Following

Kill It With Fire / Video Games

Go To


https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/pyro_58.png
Do you believe in magic...

Kill It with Fire in Video Games

  • In fact, a long-term fan of RPGs (or possibly video games in general) will often find Kill It With Fire to be the first thing they think of when confronted with a zombie or similarly undead enemy.
  • In After The End, the only way to harm and kill the Sentinel boss is to push it in a conveniently placed furnace at the end of the room taking advantage of the enviroment and your newfound powers. However, when the lifebar reaches 0 the beast will still burst from the furnace... only to drop dead from the burning flames.
  • The Flaming Arrows upgrade in Age of Empires makes arrows much more effective against buildings and ships. The first two games in the series also featured ships with flamethrowers. Age of Mythology also has some fire-based myth creatures such as the Norse Fire Giant or the Egyptian Phoenix. One of the Norse god powers is Flaming Weapons, as well.
  • Age of Wonders uses quite a bit of fire. Numerous units enjoy the Fire Strike ability, letting them deal fire damage to foes, while the fire school of magic does exactly what you'd expect. The first game also featured flamethrower siege engines, originally invented by the dwarves but buildable by anyone.
    • Age of Wonders III has the leader specializations Fire Adept and Fire Master. Also, the Steampunk-styled Dreadnought class has access to Flame Tankswhile they are slow, easily destroyed and start combat with their ability on cooldown, once you finally get to use them, it will all be worth it.
  • In the first Alone in the Dark game, the final boss is a Lovecraftian tree sorcerer. He's immune to bullets and sword slashes, nothing can hurt him except...setting his ass on fire. Throw your lantern at him and it's over for him.
  • Alpha Protocol has a perk named "Plan B: Kill It With Fire", which you achieve after setting 25 people on fire with the Incendiary Bombs.
  • After defeating the demon Melzas in battle, Alundra finally kills him by destroying his body with fire.
  • In Baldur's Gate 1 and 2, you have access to a surprising number of fire-based spells, useful for killing trolls and, um, everything that gets within fireball blast radius. Especially funny if you get the Summon Fire Elemental spell (ideally with a druid like Jaheira, since they don't have to worry about it breaking free and trying to kill them, unlike mages) before going to the ruined temple in the Umar Hills quest, since the elemental is immune to the attacks of nearly everything in the main level of the ruins, allowing you to clear the whole place out without breaking a sweat.
  • In Battle for Wesnoth, fire is a reliable way of killing many units, and an excellent way of killing (most of) The Undead and Woses. Killing stuff with fire is the Drakes' specialty.
  • One of the more useful Plasmids in BioShock is "Incinerate!" which, with a snap of the fingers, sets people on fire. The random screaming from the affected splicers who've been set ablaze ranges from terrifying to Bloody Hilarious.
    • Because if mutilated, gene addled psychopaths rushing at you with hooks to mangle you wasn't horrific enough, let's turn them into FLAMING MUTANTS WAILING IN AGONY AND ATTEMPTING TO DISEMBOWEL YOU. Much less frightening.
    • Sometimes being on fire doesn't always make them stop. Sometimes you need to wait for them to burn out.
    • Taken to another level in the sequel: If you have a Little Sister with you and you use that plasmid on somebody, she'll delightedly scream "Marshmallows!"
  • Bloodborne The Old Hunters has the Boom Hammer, a large hammer with a built in furnace. This is a part of it's weapon description:
    "Crush the beasts, then burn them — the brute simplicity of the Boom Hammer was favored by Hunters with an acute distaste for beasts."
    • The drawback is while it is relatively strong, its moveset lacks variety, and it only has average range.
  • There's always a chance the randomly-generated weapon you just picked up in Borderlands will add fire damage, which does increased damage to fleshy (unarmored, unshielded) enemies and adds damage over time when it hits. There's also fire barrels that explode into a burst of flame when shot, and fire-elemental grenades to spread the damage across a large area. Elemental Relics can cause a character's special skill to deal a particular type of damage as well, and this includes Fire Elemental relics. Vladof-made shields will explode in a wave of fire when depleted to harm enemies.
    • The sequel, Borderlands 2, includes all the previous examples, but also includes the playable Psycho, Krieg, whose "Hellborn" skill tree revolves around enhancing the effect of fire to deal huge amounts of damage while also setting himself on fire for the duration. He can breathe fire as a special skill and can even spawn homing fireballs when injured. A legendary shield, "Flame of the Firehawk", constantly emits waves of flames when it is depleted until it recharges, unlike its common kin which fire once, then must recharge.
    • Cataclysm Maya in 2 has a fun selection of incendiary side effects, most notably "Immolate" (all shots in Fight For Your Life mode are on fire), "Helios" (your Phaselock power now causes fiery explosions), "Backdraft" (your melee attacks deal fire damage, and all your shields essentially gain Fire Nova effects), and "Blight Phoenix" (on a successful kill, you emit waves of acidic fire).
    • Snipers who want everything to burn are advised to go looking for the legendary "Volcano" sniper rifle, which is more likely in the second game to drop from the Warrior in the main game or the Handsome Sorcerer in Tiny Tina's DLC. This creates a large fire cloud that sets people on fire, as well as inflicting a lot of damage to the main target, plus enemies that are on fire will ignite other nearby enemies, causing incendiary death to spread throughout any reasonably large grouping of targets.
    • Ceraunic Storm Athena in Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel! gets Maelstrom stacks for every time fire and electrical damage is dealt. These bonuses ebb away swiftly when elemental murder is not happening, but provide a stacking benefit to elemental damage while they last. After a certain point, she can also unleash firestorms by throwing her shield and call down the incendiary wrath of the gods by shooting people while leaping through the air. Sadly for this trope, however, burning people to death only works in some places — because fire needs oxygen to burn, enemies in vacuum can't ignite, necessitating the use of electrical damage instead (which also buffs several more of her talents).
  • Brütal Legend gives us the Baron, a motorcycle-riding pyromanic bad-ass and leader of the Fire Barons. According to Mangus, they were a group of outlaws that burned whatever they wanted and fled when Lionwhyte took over. They return and team up with Ironheade after helping them defeat the Drowning Doom, which gives rise to one of the most boss lines in the game:
    Baron: Burn the other guys!
    • There's also the giant lions that breathe fire. May have evolved that as a defense mechanism against the panthers that shoot lazer-eyes. And yes, you get to hire amazons who ride them into battle.
  • The Bubble Bobble games have fire-filled bubbles which are strong enough to kill enemies but weak enough to stun the protagonists. Just, well, touching anything of a higher firepower (enemy fireballs) will incinerate the protagonists.
  • In Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, the player encounters a shoggoth at one point. At first, the player attempts to dispatch it with electricity. But this doesn't work out so well. How do you kill it? Easy. Start a gas leak, leave the room, turn the power back on (there are live wires exposed in the room the shoggoth is in), and let the horrible monster be burned to a crisp by the ensuing explosion. You even get to walk through its charred, smoking, gooey remains!
  • Call of Duty:
    • Call of Duty: World at War allows you to use a flamethrower to set enemy troops on fire. Unlike the flamer in United Offensive, this one has unlimited ammo (although has an "overheating" gauge), which means indiscriminate burning death to any hapless enemy soldier. Even one mission is called "Burn Them Out" and starts off with you burning everything with said Flamethrower. Another mission gives you Molotov Cocktails.
    • Call of Duty: Black Ops has a flamethrower attachment for assault rifles.
    • Call of Duty: WWII provides period-accurate flamethrowers: the M2 flamethrower for US forces, and the Flammenwerfer for Wehrmacht forces. They both function in similar ways. The flames are not particularly powerful, requiring a few seconds to kill an enemy if you keep the flame on them. However, enemies ignited will be on fire, and unable to fight back. In addition, during the campaign, there are several moments where you're required to hold a point. If you use the flamethrower at these moments, enemy units will hesitate to charge your position, allowing you or your allies to pick them off with rifle fire without getting flanked.
  • In The Citadel, players can find a Chaingun with a secondary flamethrower or the DieselGun as a disposable standalone flamethrower, which can set some enemies on fire, causing them to scream in agony until their burnt to cinders.
  • In City of Heroes, nearly every Archetype has Fire powersets to choose from, and all have the common theme of being all damage, all the time. Most enemies are fairly weak to fire for that matter. Ask any Fire/Fire Blaster...
    • With the sole exception of the Thermal Radiation powerset, which is a case of Heal It With Fire.
  • In Cold Fear, lighting an Exo on fire will guarantee a kill. The only drawback is that it happens to burn any obtainable ammunition or items they might have been carrying as well.
  • The fastest way to kill the first boss of Comix Zone is to get it to light an oil barrel on fire, then push it underneath it and burn it alive.
  • Flame-based weaponry is the hallmark of the Brotherhood of Nod in Command & Conquer, especially when it comes to the Black Hand, though certain GDI air strikes use napalm as well. Special mention goes to the Renegade First-Person Shooter Spin-Off, where fire makes everything stop and do a panicked dance because of the flames on their bodies. The Flamethrower is a Disc-One Nuke as a result, and laser weapons are outright Game Breakers, especially when Nod officers start carrying Tarantula laser chainguns.
    • The Chinese faction from Generals have a similar love for fire. They've got flamethrowers, incendiary artillery shells, incendiary bombs, incendiary air-launched missiles, and if that doesn't solve the problem, it's time to switch to nuclear fire.
  • Company of Heroes practically owes this trope money. To wit: the first heavy weapons that the Americans and the Wehrmacht can get just happens to be the flamethrower upgrade, turning builder units into soldiers to be feared. From there on, the Americans can eventually get the Sherman Crocodile flamethrower tank), while the Wehrmacht can upgrade their halftracks with twin flammenwerfers and lay fiery waste to entire swathes of land with their Nebelwerfer rockets and Firestorm incendiary artillery barrages. The Panzer Elite don't get flamethrowers, but they can lay incendiary booby traps as well as loft incendiary grenades and mortar rounds. The Brits are perhaps the least burn-happy of all 4 factions, but their sole flamethrowing platform — the faction-specific Churchill Crocodile — is a final-tier unit that gets to fire its main gun as well as use its flamethrower.
    Croc Tank: "Burn, motherfucker."
    • The second entry of the series continues to make sweet, tender love to this trope — Soviet Conscript soldiers able to toss Molotov Cocktails while Combat Engineers and Penal Battalion's may upgrade to use flamethrowers. Soviet forces also have some commanders that let them build KV-8 tanks that switches between a flamethrower and a 45mm main gun, or drop a large incendiary artillery barrage. US Forces may upgrade flamethrowers for Riflemen units with a commander. The Wehrmacht's dual flamethrower halftrack and their Pioneer squads upgrading to have a flamethrower makes a return, the MG-42 unit may fire incendiary armour-piercing rounds which even has a chance of threatening smaller tanks and Sniper unit may shoot an incendiary explosive round (stunning the remainders of the struck infantry squad) and some commanders let them build a 250/7 Halftrack that may drop an incendiary mortar barrage as a veterancy ability.
  • In the Contra series, the usefulness of the flamethrower depends on how it works in that particular game. First two games, it kind of sucks, but the third game, it's fucking awesome.
  • The Scorchers in Crysis 3 and their Incinerators do Exactly What It Says on the Tin. The database entry says that the Ceph came up with them deliberately to capitalise on Earth lifeforms' vulnerability to heat.
  • A few of the executions in the Danganronpa franchise involve heat in some form.
    • Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc: Celestia Ludenberg, the culprit of Chapter 3, is set up to be burnt at the stake, but it turns out that this is the kind of death she wants because of how dramatic and romanticized it is. So Monokuma decides to send in a firetruck that crushes her to death instead.
    • Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair: The first killer, Teruteru Hanamura, gets bombarded with eggs and breadcrumbs during his execution, and is then dropped into a freaking volcano, essentially frying him to death.
    • Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony:
      • Korekiyo Shinguji, the third culprit, gets dropped into a boiler during his execution. Yes, getting boiled to death is as slow and agonizing as it sounds, yet this is one of the game's less gory executions.
      • The execution of Gonta Gokuhara, the fourth culprit, ends with Monokuma setting Gonta (and the giant insect that had just impaled him through the abdomen) on fire with a flamethrower.
  • In Dark Earth, every video game guide for it will tell you to save at least a few shots of the powerful flamethrower for the final boss. Your regular firearms won't stagger him long and even the flamethrower can't kill him. But the flamethrower will put him on his knees the longest and gives you the time to find the one thing that will permanently end him.
  • In Dark Souls, fire kills a lot of things (including you) quickly. The game offers plenty of options for fire damage too — pyromancy is an entire magic art that, some support spells aside, mostly consists of various ways of setting things on fire, charcoal pine resin can be applied to normal weapons to temporarily set them aflame, and weapons can be forged to deal fire damage or chaos fire (which increases based on humanity). Plenty of enemies also use fire, such as some mooks that wield torches instead of normal weapons.
  • In the Dawn of War franchise, the base Possessed Marine is a potent melee warrior but their danger level shoots through the roof when you give them an upgrade which makes them breathe fire. Bad enough to face super-tough abominations with demonic claws but if all 8 of them are spewing warpflame on you as well...you're morale is going to bottom out very quickly. Later in the series, Chaos Space Marines can get an upgrade where they have inferno bolters which shoot bolter shells of supernatural fire. These will quickly melt down heavily armored troopers and slag enemy vehicles. Inferno bolters have since been nerfed but are a still potent weapon.
  • Dead Space has a flamethrower. In a subversion, however, it's more useful for discouraging necromorphs from getting close, rather than killing them; it takes a prohibitive amount of ammunition to actually kill one with a flamethrower — they're resistant to most forms of damage except being dismembered, and when's the last time you saw a fire take someone's arm off?
    • Played straight in the case of the Hunter, which is proven to be nigh invulnerable to all of your weapons, is only killed when it gets hit by the engine fire from the Ishimura's executive-use shuttles.
    • The flamethrower got an upgrade in Dead Space 2. Now it is a lot more powerful, and causes lingering damage. Also they are perfect for killing swarms of little Necromorphs.
  • In Dead to Rights, you defeat the Final Boss by knocking him into a furnace.
  • In the Deception series, a lot of later enemies have great armour rating and some even have the invincibility power which reduces damage to 1. However, a number of fire-based environmental traps will bypass armour and invincibility to do full damage on these elite foes.
  • Defense Grid: The Awakening has Inferno and Meteor towers, and since they do area of effect damage, they're great against Swarmers.
  • In Defense of the Ancients fire is a common theme for heroes, it has a Witch, a magical ogre, a Phoenix who's attacks are all fire-based, also a pyromaniac troll who throws oil at you so his fire attacks hurt you even more.
  • Both played straight and subverted in Deus Ex: The flamethrower and incendiary phosphor rockets will incapacitate normal humans and the supertough The Men in Black (the latter of which can take a sniper rifle headshot and keep on fighting) with even the slightest graze, turning them into human torches that run around screaming wildly. It is also extremely painful for yourself if you don't happen to have the appropriate anti-Fire implant boosted to maximum, have a fire extinguisher you can use, or have a nearby lake to jump into. However, it has no effect at all on the MJ12 Commando cyborgs, who need to be taken down by conventional bullets, explosives or melee weapons, and is useless against robots as well.
  • Besides monsters with ice-based powers, the only creatures who have been universally weak to fire throughout the Dragon Age franchise are walking corpses. Various other creatures have exhibited weakness to flames at different points in the series.
  • Dragon Quest IV: Maya learns the whole family of Fire Spells.
  • In Dragon's Crown, a lot of enemies are weak to fire, including all kinds of undead, insects, plants, and Owlbears. Fire is also the only way to kill the Slimes in Wallace's Underground Labyrinth and the various Ghosts you encounter (though more specifically, they're repelled by the light of the fire).
  • Averted in Dragonstrike, set in the Dragonlance background, you are Solamnic Knight partnered with a mighty dragon. Sounds like a sure-fire winner. Unfortunately your dragon's main breath weapon is awkward to time against flying enemies (which is everything in the game). As such your fire or ice breath will rarely hit and when they do your enemies are fellow dragons and tough enough to take several breaths before dying. It's a lot easier to kill enemy dragons with your alternate breath weapon such as poison gas or sleeping gas, or smacking an enemy dragon with your dragonlance. The only time your main breath weapon will be more effective is when you fight a dracolich which is immune to gases.
  • Dragon's Wake: You play as a dragon, so naturally there is a lot of this. There's even an achievement with this exact name.
  • Drakan: Even with the best magical artifacts and weapons, the warrior Rynn will easily get her ass kicked by the more elite enemies she faces (which is pretty much anything tougher than a Wartok). Those same creatures that gave Rynn so much trouble will die in flames whenever they confront her partner, the ancient dragon Arokh.
  • Dwarf Fortress has a number of methods, including:
    • Build furniture from flammable materials, then set them on fire as an incendiary floor trap. Notable, Artifact items can catch on fire but are indestructible, and will therefore burn forever unless extinguished with water.
    • Capture and tame a dragon before it can taste dwarf blood and you have a hellbeast capable of breathing flame. Dragons themselves are immune to fire, so they won't accidentally incinerate themselves.
    • Magma. On the forums it is often remarked that magma solves everything, including, in one case, as a solution to a burning dwarf: if he's melted, he's not on fire anymore. Popular methods include:
      • Flood a sealed chamber with magma.
      • Flood the entire rest of the world with magma. The fortress of Boatmurdered (ab)used this to infamous effect with their Project: "Fuck the World."
      • Use carefully placed reservoirs to drop magma on invaders from above.
      • Use massive towers of pumps to build up the pressure to create magma geysers from below.
      • Can happen to inflammable beings being plunged into magma.
      • In earlier versions, some creatures were immune to fire due to not having fat or blood, as heat used to only damage by causing a creature's layers of fat to melt, which causes bleeding. Some of those also couldn't even be killed by weapons due to a quirk of the injury system. Yet magma can still stop them if you submerge them in magma, then submerge the magma in water, which turns the magma to obsidian and crushes anything within it. One player used this method to defeat the entire population of hell using only a massive checkerboard shaped Death Trap.
    • As of DF2014, sheer heat can now kill everything except for dragons and demons, because body parts are pulped by it.
    • Another popular trap is the water-based burning device, which uses a piece of lignite in a magma-proof bin. This lignite is ignited with magma, after which the magma is removed. Whilst in a bin, the lignite can't be destroyed by the fire. It can, however, vaporize any and all water which enters the tile. Combined with a large source of water, a player can use the flow to pull enemies into the fire, where they will burn to death.
  • Dynasty Warriors loves this. It's almost as if the strategists are limited to either using fire to burn things down, or ambushes to surprise the enemy.
    • In the Shu campaign, Zhuge Liang's debut battle consisted of him setting traps in a forest. The first one to be triggered was... yes, it involved setting the enemy on fire!
    • In the Battle of Chi Bi/Red Cliffs, Cao Cao's enormous fleet outnumbering the Wu and Shu forces by something like ten to one was defeated by Zhuge Liang and Zhou Yu hatching an intricate plot to burn his ships, then strike back.
    • The fire spam gets ridiculous when you get to the Nanman Campaign and meet the armoured soldiers who seem to be invincible to your troops. A few minutes later, you can't help but laugh at Meng Huo's troops wearing wooden armour as Zhuge Liang uses fire yet again to win that particular battle. Worse, this battle happens after Chi Bi where the Shu strategist showed the whole of China without any doubt how good he was at using fire to burn things that belonged to the enemy!
  • The Elder Scrolls:
    • Though the exact mechanics vary from game to game, fire-based spells and enchantments are extremely effective against most types of undead, vampires, trolls, and even enemy Altmer (High Elves).
    • Morrowind:
      • Downplayed in the main game, as the majority of NPCs are the fire-resistant Dunmer (Dark Elves), reducing the value of fire-based spells and enchantments. Frost and Lightning magic tend to be more popular Destruction-school spells for this reason.
      • Played straight in the Bloodmoon expansion, where almost everything in Solstheim is weak to fire due to being ice-based creatures, Plant People (such as Spriggans), or some form of undead (like Draugr). Here, the frost-resistant Nords make up the majority of enemy NPCs instead.
    • Oblivion has several undead (including vampires) as well as trolls and high elves with a vulnerability to fire. But as the locals will frequently tell you, "a sword works just as well".
    • Skyrim:
      • Of the three energy types used in Destruction magic, fire is noted as simply being the single most damaging, and works best overall for when you need to kill something fast. The other two energy types have their uses (cold spells sap enemy stamina and slow enemies down, while shock magic hits instantly and drains magicka) but nearly everything worth shooting with magic in the first place is either damaged normally by fire or has a specific vulnerability to flames. It has the added benefit of panicking targets at low health as well.
      • As mentioned above, the Plant People Spriggans once again have fire as a major weakness. However, there are now Burnt Spriggans in the Dragonborn DLC (who were damaged when Red Mountain erupted during the Red Year). Burnt Spriggans invert it by being immune to fire damage while being able to dish out fire-based attacks of their own.
  • In Emerald City Confidential, Petra defeats the Big Bad with fire. She transports him into a painting using magic, and then sets the painting on fire.
  • In Eternal Darkness, if your character is equipped with a torch, you can set Mantorok and Xel'lotath Zombies on fire for a One-Hit KO, since they're severely dried out, reanimated corpses (and Xel'lotath Zombies are also clad in bandages).
    • Michael Edwards also attempted to use explosives to put out the oil fires in the penultimate chapternote .
  • Several characters in Evolve use fire based weaponry. Hyde uses a short-range flamethrower while Ciara uses a napalm grenade launcher. On the Monster's side, the Goliath can blast an area with fire to ignite foes and the Behemoth can launch a flaming projectile to make an area impassable. This is taken up to eleven by the adaptations of Goliath and Maggie, who can set targets on fire with every ability.
  • EXTRAPOWER Attack of Dakrforce: Some of Crown and Fool's more powerful attacks involve them dousing the enemy in gasoline and lighting them on fire.
  • All four Fallout, plus Fallout: New Vegas games have incendiary weapons: the traditional flamethrower (flamer), Molotov Cocktails, Nuka-Cola Grenade (a radioactive molotov cocktail with even more explosive results)... and all of those weapons set their foes on fire with a critical hit (or with any hit using a Flamer) before turning the corpses into piles of ash. Fallout loves this trope!
    • The flamer of Fallout and Fallout 2 was heavy, used rare and heavy ammo and had abysmal range. A straight example of Video Game Flamethrowers Suck. Fallout 2 also introduced Molotov Cocktails. Being thrown weapons, they sucked too.
    • The Shishkebab!
    • Some mutated critters even have the ability to spew fire, Fallout 2 had Fire Geckos in some Random Encounters, and Fallout 3 introduced Fire Ants. Both of them return in New Vegas.
    • In Fallout 3, if the gamer wants Kick the Dog, they can kill a certain character rather painfully with fire, rather than trying to talk him out of his deathwish or putting him down mercifully.
    • The 2nd and 3rd game plus New Vegas have player perks that specifically make fire weapons do more damage.
    • The Fallout 3 DLC Broken Steel adds the Heavy Incinerator, which lobs fireballs at your enemies. Fallout: New Vegas introduces a not-so-heavy version that only fires single shots, but can be found rather early.
    • In the Vault 22 sidequest of Fallout: New Vegas, you ignite a gas leak to exterminate the parasitic fungus spores. Don't forget to Outrun the Fireball (or close a door to shield yourself from it).
    • Caesar attempted this on his previous Legate, Joshua Graham, after the loss of the First Battle of Hoover Dam. Notably, it didn't kill him and barely slowed him down.
    • The Molotov cocktail returns to New Vegas as the Fire Bomb in Honest Hearts, and Old World Blues features a sonic emitter pistol that causes people to catch fire. Lonesome Road DLC features the flare gun, which expends flamer fuel to fire a magnesium flare (somehow) that does Scratch Damage but sets targets on fires and also scares off Abominations such as Deathclaws and Tunnelers.
    • .50 caliber anti-materiel rifle rounds are available from a few vendors in New Vegas—including specialty loads like the incendiary round, when you positively have to shoot something with the largest ballistic round in the game and still have it catch fire afterwards.
  • Far Cry:
    • In Far Cry 2, a First-Person Shooter set in modern Africa, fire is realistically implemented: many things can cause one to start (gas tanks, fuel barrels, flamethrowers, Molotovs, flare guns, the backblast from rocket launchers, and any sort of explosion) and depending on your surroundings, it can spread, fast. Aside from obvious uses like setting people on fire, enemies also react accordingly, and will back away and avoid fires, making them good distractions, allowing you to flank them, sneak into their base, or escape. Seeing an outpost up in flames, spreading across the grass, up trees, and into the jungle as far as the eye can see, is a sight to behold. The flamethrower is one of the most-advised weapon to carry around partially due to how the fire physics work, and partially due to its plentiful fuel and high durability letting you burn for hours without worrying about the thing running out of gas, or worse, blowing up in your face in a long fight.
    • Far Cry 3: The flamethrower is less useful because of the lush island jungle environment, but is REALLY useful against heavy-armor LMG enemies, who have shielded themselves in bulletproof armor that is bulky, slow, and flammable. They're also good for dealing with herds of animals by setting fire to the patches of grass that they graze/hunt. And you have the obligatory flamethrower mission where you burn enough weed to supply a rock concert of Beatles. Enemies that catch enough fire are dead... but some psychos will run towards you screaming on fire. You also have the option of using incendiary ammo, especially with a bow.
    • Far Cry 4: The flamethrower has even less use here due to the VERY humid/cold environment... until you play the Shangri-La missions, where demon warriors will aid their grunts by using a classic torch-and-alcohol flamethrower. Since you don't have a gun in these missions, this weapon is deadly against you — flanking them, however, will make the fight too easy.
    • Far Cry Primal: Due to the prehistoric setting, flamethrowers are replaced with flammable clubs, spears, and arrows, which Takkar can use against enemy tribes and dangerous wildlife. On the villains' side, the Izila tribe use fire-bombs to immolate their opponents, and they're especially eager to use it in their Human Sacrifice rituals. Ironically, Takkar uses fire to kill their leader, Batari the Sun Daughter.
  • Final Fantasy:
    • Undead enemies in most games are weak against fire. Some zombies are weak against other kinds of magic, too.
    • Also, anything ice based is pretty obviously weak to fire.
  • Fire Emblem:
    • Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade: Eliwood's most powerful sword has the element of fire, one of the better anima tomes is called Elfire, and mages first start using fire as their weapons. This game is just loaded with this trope. The Fire Emblem's namesake item in every game tends to be a powerful seal for evil Gods.
    • FE 4: Arvis's Rot Ritter — a division of elite soldiers dedicated to this trope courtesy of the Meteor tome. You first see them in action when they kill the enemy's reinforcements in Chapter 5. Then they kill your units at the Battle of Belhalla. When you finally fight them in Chapter 10, they're Demonic Spiders. The apple isn't falling far from the tree, Emperor Arvis himself wields a spell of Holy Fire: Valflame. It's extremely powerful. Sigurd, The Hero up to that point, gets a personal taste of it while his army is killed by the Rot Ritter.
    • Fire Emblem: Awakening invokes this in Lucina's support conversation with her sibling. When the sibling discovers a cockroach in the camp, they (yes, including Morgan, an accomplished mage) will panic and ask Lucina, an entirely un-magical swordsman, to "kill it with fire magic or something!"
  • Fire Shark has the red flamethrower weapon. At max level, it shot out 6 streams of very damaging fire, two of which fired out forward and the other four swept the sides and back of your plane, easily massacring every mook in sight. There's a reason why the game is called FIRE Shark...
  • In The First Funky Fighter, a bonus item on stages 1 and 3 will, when hit, cause a firestorm that destroys every enemy on the screen.
  • Flesh Birds: You can find a flamethrower near the end of the game that will barbecue the birds and the boss in the church.
  • From Next Door deconstructs this. Namie can repeatedly use her makeshift flamethrower to set the creature alight, but as it's burning it grabs hold of Namie, trapping her and causing her to burn to death as well.
  • FTL: Faster Than Light features the fire beam and the fire bomb as dedicated fire-causing weapons, as well as the potential for any sort of weapon hit on a ship's hull to cause a fire. There's great fun to be had abusing the fire beam particularly, since you get an achievement for setting the entirety of an enemy ship on fire and only one race is immune to fire (and even then, they have to put them out). On anything but an AI-controlled ship (which has no oxygen), an out of control fire is effectively a death sentence.
    • Rock crew are immune to fires, and therefore are great for suppressing fires on your ship or augmenting fire weapons directed at the enemy ship. Fighting enemy crew in a burning room will rapidly deplete their health, and once their health is critical they will automatically run away, leaving your Rock invaders free to destroy whatever system is in the room if the fires haven't destroyed it yet. In fact, the Type B Rock Cruiser starts with Fire Bombs; buy a teleporter, drop bombs into an enemy ship, and beam your crew in, and the rest is history.
  • Gears of War 2 gives you access to a flamethrower, which is one of the nastier close-range weapons you can use, doubly so because of its effectiveness at getting around enemy cover. It also does a ridiculous amount of sustained damage, making it great to use to hose big, slow enemies like Boomers, Maulers, and Reavers.
    • In Gears of War 3, the flamethrower is one of the only weapons that has any effect on a Berserker.
  • Gift: The Burners and the Blue Burners attack Gift with their burning arms. Also, they leave a small temporary fire when killed.
  • Grand Theft Auto 2: The flamethrower kills stuff with fire, obviously. Catching fire is certain death for Mooks and nearly always for the player as well — the only way to survive is to find a health pickup in time.
  • In Grand Theft Auto III, the flamethrower is surprisingly effective at toasting tanks.
    • There's even a side mission in the game that requires the player to kill X amount of Triads with a flamethrower before the clock runs down.
    • And in San Andreas, with it's trusty throwable cousin, the Molotov Cocktail. Plus, ANY explosion will cause fire.
  • In Gruntz, the Welder's Kit tool. It shoots a fireball that is an instant kill to any grunt except the ones wearing Gunhats.
  • Gunstar Heroes has the Fire Shot basic weapon, which is your typical short-range, high-damage flamethrower...to start. As you pick up additional weapons, you may combine weapons to access some useful upgrades, including a rapid-fire grenade launcher, a controllable fireball, an even bigger and longer-ranged flamethrower, and finally what can only be described as a lightsaber in all but name. The fire/fire combo deals the most damage per second at a reasonable range, and is the go-to weapon for clearing out large numbers of mooks.
  • Half-Life 2 features a few situations where nearby gas tanks can be turned on and the vapors ignited as a convenient zombie solution. Used to spectacular effect in Ravenholm.
    • In Half-Life 2 Episode One you can use highway flares to light up dark areas or to light up dark zombies (15 of them to get the "Zombie-que" achievement). In one particular situation, you're rather quickly out of flashlight power and flares so lighting up some zombies is a rather convenient way to get some light. Seeing how you only have the Gravity Gun, your flashlight and flares are the only thing that gives you and Alyx a fighting chance against headcrab zombies, especially the Zombines and Fast Zombies.
    • And then, because after all there is a human puppet being controlled by that headcrab, they scream. And scream. And scream. Just... just shoot him already. To make it worse, this is what they're screaming, played backwards.
    • Also, in the original Half-Life, one of the Gargantua's weapons was flamethrowers somehow built into its arms. Another alien, the tentacle, is only able to be killed when you turn on a rocket engine above its head and burn it alive.
  • Halo:
    • Halo 3 brings you unlimited fun with the flamethrower and flame grenades. The latter tend to be so powerful they kill most enemies on contact and burn through the heaviest Brute armor and Flood forms in seconds.
    • In Halo Wars, the forces of the UNSC Spirit of Fire find that while the Flood are an extremely dangerous threat, flamethrowers are excellent weapons against them.
    • Flamethrowers return in Halo Wars 2, and this time they are also good at taking down buildings and bases as well as infantry. Morgan Kinsano, one of the new leaders, uses some dedicated flame-based abilities and units designed for rushing and taking out enemy bases early on.
    • In general, ballistic weapons are useless against the Flood. But not plasma; the Covenant and Forerunner Plasma weaponry rip through them like bullets through tissue paper. The plasma rifle can tear through Flood Combat forms without the weight of the UNSC flamethrowers slowing John down.
  • In Hard Corps: Uprising ('successor' to the Contra series), the 'Heated Plasma' weapon launches out a short-range, high damage fireball that burns through enemies in a very satisfying manner. Even better: That's just one way to use it. Charge it up really quick to unleash a giant ball of fire that devastates enemies, travels through defenses, and best of all, travels all the way across the screen unlike its normal shots. Because that isn't awesome enough, it is available in Level 1, 2, and 3 forms, each upgrade increasing the damage and size of your fire.
  • In Hogwarts Legacy, as shown in Half-Blood Prince the Voodoo Zombie Inferi are resistant to all forms of damage except fire. Fire is effective against most enemies, but there are plenty of Evil Sorcerers capable of returning the favor.
  • Ib: This is the only way to absolutely, truly, destroy paintings in the Fabricated Gallery. It's also how you kill Mary at the end of the game, usually. Any other attempt to destroy her painting is ineffective. The whole thing is very nicely foreshadowed by a friendly sign reading "No fire in the gallery", and a whole room freaking out when Garry tries to use his lighter to see in the dark.
  • The favored MO of Razmi in Indivisible is to summon the spirit of her tiger companion Bom to burn her enemies alive. She brings this fate upon a few Navar state soldiers shortly before Ajna meets her for the first time, and continues to do so throughout the game.
  • This is the raison d'être of the Firebug class in Killing Floor While he uses conventional gunsnote  save for his endgame toys, he fires incendiary ammo that will set ablaze anything touched by it. Very useful in the fact that, despite doing pinch damage to them (and only them), fire damage won't trigger the "charge" flag of the Scrake or the Fleshpound, meaning a high-level Firebug can solo those two horrors by hitting them with a single bullet and letting fire do the job (and eventualy lighting it up again as fire stops after a while).
  • In the video game titled Kill It with Fire, you are given a lighter and aerosol can to burn spiders alive from the first level in the game.
  • Kingdom Hearts:
  • Kirby:
    • In Kirby Star Allies, Whispy Woods is weak to fire during the second half of his boss fight. When you have the fire copy ability and you hit him with enough fire attacks, Whispy will catch on fire and flip out in pain until he eventually loses all of his health. The same thing also applies with his elderly counterpart, Yggy Woods and his otherworldly counterpart, Parallel Woods.
  • In Knights of Honor, one skill your marshalls (Generals) can learn makes archers and siege Weapons more powerful by, obviously, lighting them on fire. you even get a special animation of the enemy troops freaking out, and rolling on the ground before they die from the fire.
    • Dito for the cauldrons of burning oil. nothings quite as satisifying as half the enemy army burning at the gates.
  • In Krush Kill n' Destroy there are flamethrower troops on both sides as well as flame apcs on the Survivors side.
  • In Lara Croft GO, Lara can shoot hostile creatures at close range, but unless she approaches from the side or back, she won't get close enough to shoot before getting mauled. If she has a flaming torch, however, the dynamic changes — the creatures are afraid of the fire, allowing her to confront them head-on.
  • In the Left 4 Dead games, the Infected are very susceptible to fire. It's even an instant death to the common ones, and after the more mutated ones are set alight, it's just a matter of time before they die. Tanks and Witches are even slowed down by it! And from the gamut of molotovs, gas cans, barrels and incendiary ammo pickups you can find, it's a great tool to use. Just don't let an aflame Hunter pounce on you...
  • Left 4 Dead 2 brings back the fire killing tools plus adds a new one in the form of incendiary ammo. For a whole magazine, you can turn your bullets into fire bullets that will instantly kill common infected and set ablaze special infected. However, some infected wearing hazmat suits can resist being set ablaze, but the fire itself can still cause damage.
  • Annie in League of Legends has three different ways of killing it with fire, first she can throw a fire ball, second she can breathe fire, and third she can order her teddy bear to attack you (it turns into a gigantic monster that is on fire)
    • Brand follows this trope to a T, more so than even Annie. In addition, new champ Rumble has a flamethrower attached to his mech, plus a barrage of incendiary missiles. A few other champions have a fire-based skill. Everyone (once you gain a couple levels, anyway) has access to the spell Ignite, as well.
  • In much of the Legacy of Kain series, fire is one of four reliable ways to finish off vampires (the other three being sunlight, water, and impalement, although some are resistant to sunlight or water).
    • In Blood Omen you have Flame Sword (which is second only to Soul Reaver itself), Soul Reaver has Fire Reaver upgrade and Fire Glyph, Soul Reaver 2 also has Fire upgrade, Blood Omen 2 has Immolate power, that is given near the end and Defiance has another Fire upgrade. Curiously, it also has Flame Balance Emblem upgrade for Kain, but it only makes mooks fight each other.
    • In Nosgoth this is the bread and butter of the Alchemist class.
  • The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night: In the first phase of his battle, the Treant Arborick can only be harmed by setting parts of him on fire until his entire body is engulfed in flame.
  • The Legend of Zelda:
    • The Legend of Zelda:
      • For Link, he has the Candle, and the Magical Rod after you find the Book of Magic.
      • The Old Man in some of the dungeons will start launching fireballs at Link should he hurt him.
    • Zelda II: The Adventure of Link: Link gets advised to use fire if everything else fails by a villager. Later in the game, Link will run into a couple of enemy types only vulnerable to fire.
    • ReDeads are vulnerable to burning damage, too.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has the Fire Arrows, which burns enemies upon contact. A Link to the Past uses an Fire Rod instead of Arrows. Because it melts even the coldest ice, it's handy for icy enemies and vital in The Wind Waker when Link travels to Ice Ring Isle for the Iron Boots.
    • Along with the Fire Arrows, Ocarina of Time also has Din's Fire, which is found in the Great Fairy Fountain outside Hyrule Castle during Link's childhood. It burns everything around Link within a twelve-foot radius. While handy against all the icy enemies in the Ice Cavern (including Ice Keese), it's not necessarily considered essential until later in the game, when Link visits the Shadow Temple: first, to light all the torches in the Graveyard to open the doorway to said temple, and near the end, to destroy the rickety spiked walls in the room containing the Boss Key.
    • The Twinrova (Koume and Kotake) boss fights in both Ocarina of Time and the Oracle Games. The former game has the two witches being fought in the Spirit Temple as the eighth and final standard boss before facing off with Ganondorf, while the latter two game series has you fighting them in the Room of Rites after completing a linked game in which all 16 dungeons in either game are completed and Veran (Oracle of Ages) and General Onox (Oracle of Seasons) have been bested. The first half of the battle has the sorceress twins being weak to their opposite elements, so the gimmick is you have to reflect a blast of magic fired from one sister to the other (in Ocarina of Time, neither the Ice or Fire Arrows can harm them, and the same applies for the Oracles' Ember Seeds). Koume attacks with fire, which the icy Kotake is weak to, and vice-versa. After a few hits, regardless of which sister taking the most blasts, the sisters fuse together to become Twinrova, a single super-witch with the combined powers of both sisters.
      • Ocarina of Time is where you have to use the Mirror Shield to absorb three blasts of their magic, then reflect it back at them, followed by a few hits from your sword. Make sure you avoid absorbing the opposite element, as it cancels out the already-absorbed element and deals damage to you at the same time.
      • The linked Oracle games has Twinrova alternating between two phases of attack, which affect the battlefield and Link. When in fire form, parts of the battlefield become lava pits Link has to avoid falling into and she launches damaging fireballs. When in ice form, the battlefield's entire floor becomes encased in slippery ice and she materializes spiky ice crystals that ricochet back and forth from the walls. Link must navigate each element thrown at him to strike Twinrova with his Sword several times to stun her, and once she is stunned, he must use a Mystery Seed to actually damage her.
    • Subversion: Gibdos in The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask. Light them on fire, and... you get a ReDead immediately using its stunning Screech. In most other games, it works just fine — killing them outright, or turning them into a much weaker Stalfos.
    • The Legend of Zelda: Oracle Games:
      • Both games have the Ember Seeds. They function the same way as the Fire Arrows, whether used when you're in front of enemies or objects with the Seed Satchel or fired from a distance using Oracle of Ages's Seed Shooter or Oracle of Seasons's Slingshot.
      • Along with the sorceress sisters, Oracle of Seasons has the Sword and Shield Maze, and its miniboss, Frypolar. Very simple to explain, because the dungeon is fire-themed on the sword floor and ice-themed on the shield floor, and Frypolar has the power to convert from fire to ice, hence their respective names. While in fire form, Frypolar shoots multiple fiery geysers that will harm Link upon contact and in ice form, creates pillars of ice rising from the ground. When in ice form, it is weak against Link's Ember Seeds when they're fired at him, but when in fire form, Link has to throw the ice pillars that it originally created to attack him. Link can also fire Mystery Seeds at it to make it change elements faster in order to execute the proper attacks. As far as reaching the boss, Medusa Head, and recovering the eighth and final Essence of Nature, the Changing Seasons, the trope is defied in which you have to use the icy pillars found on the shield floor to harden the lava on the sword floor and cool it off, allowing Link to progress.
    • In most Zelda games, this is defied with fiery enemies, as they are immune to fiery attacks. This also applies to Keese, a common bat enemy, as anything fiery, such as a torch, Ember Seeds or Fire Arrows, will turn a normal Keese into a flying divebombing fireball instead until it hits Link, at which point the flame disappears until they go back for more. However, Ice Keese, which are found in snowy regions, are not immune to flames.
    • In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Link becomes twice as vulnerable to fire and ice attacks if he wears the Zora Armor, losing up to 10 hearts when hit. If he falls into lava or ice-cold water, he will die instantly.
    • In The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, lighting an enemy on fire is a good way to open them up to further damage while they panic and try to put out the flames. Fire can also be used to instantly slay Ice Wizzrobes (and the inverse also applies to Fire Wizzrobes).
  • Luminous Arc series has Leon, Vanessa, Althea, Glen, and Olmoldee.
  • The flamethrower in the Marathon games is an example — it's extremely effective against mainly organic enemies... less so vs mechanical targets.
  • There are several units in March of War armed with flamethrowers. Biggest ones are probably the Republican Flame Tank, the Soviet Union's Inferno Hammer and the Shogun Empire's Flame Tank.
  • Mass Effect:
    • In the first game, you can load up your weapons with Incendiary Rounds and the upgraded Inferno Rounds for bringing searing pain to your enemies, which is especially helpful against krogan enemies, who might regenerate and get back up if not burned to ash. And High Explosive Rounds not only set their targets (now corpses) on fire, but also do the same thing to nearby enemies in the blast radius, which is about four meters—and sends them flying. While on fire.
    • The sequel keeps the incendiary rounds and allows tech-savvy characters to launch an auto-seeking fireball via the 'Incinerate' power. Both are useful for stopping enemy health regeneration. There's even an achievement for letting enough enemies burn to death after they're lit up.
    • Downloadable content for the second game adds a true flamethrower heavy weapon. Short range, but effective against all defenses, and really handy for zomb-er, husks, which usually come in swarms.
    • Vido Santiago's death if you go Renegade in Zaeed's loyalty mission.
      Zaeed: Fry, you son of a bitch.
    • Geth Pyros in 3 attack with flamethrowers, and Geth Soldiers and Vorcha characters in multiplayer can return the favor.
    • Mass Effect 3 adds powerful melee attacks to Shepard's repertoire which change based on class. The Engineer gets a blast of superheated gas surging around his/her arm, letting Shepard bitchslap someone with a flaming backhand.
    • Engineers and Infiltrators in Mass Effect 2 and Mass Effect 3 have the Incinerate power, which destroys enemies with fire. Soldiers and Vanguards can use incendiary ammunition.
  • The Matrix: Path of Neo has giant, humanoid ants that can only be killed by throwing them into a candelabra or stabbing them with lit torches, they disintegrate into embers when you kill them.
  • At the end of Medal of Honor: Allied Assault, you destroy Fort Schmerzen by triggering a gas leak and igniting it with explosives. Then you have to Outrun the Fireball while escaping the Collapsing Lair.
  • Metal Slug has the Flame Shot, which, while already useful when it comes to roasting human enemies, proves to be absolutely epic in the sequel games when they start throwing supernatural enemies at the player(s). Mummy problem in the pyramids? Turn half a dozen of them into burning bandages with one shot. Mutants? Torch them by the dozens. Zombies? Even the Tar Men, who can soak up to several dozen pistol rounds, dies after exposure to flames. Giant bugs and maggots? Easy extermination. Man Eating Plants? Instant weed-killer.
  • Several Mega Man Robot Masters, including the obvious (Fire Man, Heat, Flame, Burner, Magma, and Solar), and the somewhat less so (Pharaoh, Turbo, Sword), though not Napalm Man. When Mega Man wants to Kill It With Fire, using it against the ice-wielding guys is a bad move (Except in 6, Mega Man 8 and 10 where it does the same damage as a charged Mega Buster). Oddly enough, you'll use fire against the guys trying to cut you to bits (Ring Man, Slash Man) or slinging explosives around (Bomb Man, Burst Man, Pirate Man).
    • ROM Hack Rockman No Constancy, in addition to Heat Man's weapon Proto Charge, also has Quick Man's weapon, Delay Flame.
    • Every game in the Mega Man X series, with the exception of X3, has a fire-themed Maverick and weapon to use. Both are usually found in a stage full of nasty lava and fire hazards.
    • In the Mega Man Zero games, weapons boosted with the flame chip are indeed extremely effective against ice opponents. (In 2, it is also extremely therapeutic, given that the boss you had to kill to get said chip was a real pain.)
    • Mega Man Star Force has a number of fire-based opponents, plus the Saurian tribe in 2, and a fair number of attacks. The "Heat Grenade" deserves special merit, since not only does it blast apart the three back rows with significant damage, but it also destroys any special scenery on those squares, such as grass.
    • Insect creatures tend to be weak against fire in RPGs. Hornet Man's weak point is Magma Bazooka.
  • Mercenaries 2: World In Flames. Apart from the fact it's in the TITLE, you can use fuel-air missiles and fuel-air bombs (delivered by plane) to kill things with fire. A lot of things, with a lot of fire.
  • The Metal Gear series has two main instances of the trope; In Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake the only way to kill the Final Boss is to immolate him with a lighter and a can of hairspray, and in Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater one of the bosses is a flamethrower-wielding jetpack-equipped pyromaniac cosmonaut who wants to kill everything with fire, and quickly immediately sets the battlefield (and the player) ablaze. The Final Boss of Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty streaks across the battlefield, leaving trails of fire in his wake.
  • In Metroid Prime you can kill it with plasma with the Plasma beam, and adapt the beam into a veritable flamethrower as well (sapping away your missiles in the process). Seeing your Space Pirate foes blacken and singe away into dust makes up for the ammunition drain.
  • In Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, the Plasma Beam makes a return, and when you let a full-charged shot rip into a horde of Tinbots, they melt!
  • In Minecraft, this is an effective tactic to kill mobs from a distance, lighting the ground on fire and having them walk into it. You can also place blocks of wood or, even better, coal to use this tactic in places that aren't normally flammable, such as caves. It doesn't work at all with creatures from the Nether, however.
  • Mission: Impossible (Konami): Turned against you. Knives and melee attacks do one damage. Bullets do two. Fire attacks do a whopping six damage, or half your life bar in one hit. And since fire attacks tend to linger, it's easy to see your agent go from full health to dead in under a second if you're not careful.
  • Not so much for killing, but the Play Station Vita version of ModNation Racers weaponizes fireballs as a power-up. The thing is, because stacking power-ups increase their level, you can max it out at level 3 and fire a giant Phoenix to swoop across the track.
  • Monster Hunter (PC) has Frankenstein's Monster enemies who can only be killed by flaming torches. The first torch turns it into a walking inferno, forcing it to crawl back to it's spawner to recharge - the player must collect a second torch, beat the monster back to the spawner, and set it alight a second time to finally kill it.
  • Several Mortal Kombat characters use fireballs and such as their special attacks. Quite a few stage fatalities.
    Dan Forden: Toasty!
  • In Neverwinter Nights 2 most of Qara's default offensive spells are fire based.
  • In The Nightmare Before Christmas: Oogie's Revenge the Pumpkin King's Pumpkin Bomb attack has a wide range and is Jack's most powerful attack outside of his dance attacks. He also breathes fire.
  • Nobody Saves the World: The Dragon form's attacks can apply burn to enemies, which does lasting damage if enough burn is built into them. Some enemies also have fire attacks that apply burn to Nobody in the same manner.
  • The plot of no-one has to die. revolves around the player helping four people navigate a company building that's been set on fire by an unknown arsonist. While you're led to believe it's the Death Seeker Troy at first, it turns out that it was actually Christina, who has a grudge against the company for killing her mother in a failed experiment years prior.
  • In Ori and the Will of the Wisps, the first weapon Ori acquires is a torch, which they must use to fend off the dire wolf Howl.
  • Fire is one of the only things that will permanently kill Dry Bones in the Paper Mario series. Curiously fireballs have little effect on Dry Bones in other games of the Super Mario Bros. franchise.
  • Unless one makes liberal use of Thing cards, this is the only way to kill the Shunned Guy in Paper Mario: Color Splash. Of course, the trope name is also the common player's reaction to seeing it.
  • In the Back Story of Planescape: Torment, a group of wizards try to do this to Ignus by making him into a living conduit to the Elemental Plane of Fire. It didn't work. It made him happy! Ignus also plays this trope out against his enemies — all of his default spells (which are unique to him) are fire-based, and his default attack is throwing miniature fireballs at his opponents. A Wizard Nameless One can also allow Ignus to subject him to a Death of a Thousand Cuts version of this to gain some of Ignus's spells, by allowing Ignus to burn first a finger, then a hand, then an eye, then the Nameless One's intestines, to charred meat and ash. Except for the last one (you get a spare set if you allow the crazy dissectionist Marta to cut your guts open to see if there's anything of value inside of you), all of these are done to you while the parts you sacrifice are still attached to you.
  • Plants vs. Zombies 2: It's About Time: Explorer Zombies can burn your plants with his torch, instantly killing them. However, you can put the fire out with an iceberg lettuce. The sequel also introduces the Snapdragon, which shoots a wall of fire wide enough to cover three lanes, the Lightning Reed, which will burn zombies to a crisp after enough exposure, and the Pepper Pult, which deals AOE fire damage as well as thawing plants around it. Zombot Dark Dragon can use a fire breath on two lanes, instantly destroying any plants on them and rendering them unplantable for a short while. It can also spit fireballs into the air that rain on the lawn, which can also spawn Imp Dragon zombies
  • Pokémon
    • Grass-, Ice-, Bug-, & Steel-type Pokémon take double damage from Fire, and the unfortunate Snover, Sewaddle, and Paras lines take Quad Damage, as do Steel/Bug-types and two of the three forms of Wormadam. Paras and Parasect manages to take Quint Damage with its ability Dry Skin. Scizor, Forretress, Durant, Escavalier, and Genesect (the aforementioned Steel/Bug) have Fire as their only weakness, but it's a Quad Damage weakness.
    • It also helps that some of the most popular Pokémon are Fire types. They usually have high Attack and Special Attack stats, plus most Fire-type attacks do a lot of damage.
    • This is a particularly viable tactic against Shedinja. Thanks to its Wonder Guard ability, it can only sustain direct damage from five different types — Ghost, Dark, Flying, Rock, and... well, guess.
    • The move Fire Fang has the special quality of being able to hit Pokémon with Wonder Guard, even if they aren't weak to Fire normally. While this wouldn't make a difference with Shedinja, it IS a useful way to be able to attack other Pokémon that have Traced Wonder Guard and Pokémon that are hacked so that they are given that ability (which would be useful on a Dark/Ghost cross like Spiritomb because it had no weaknesses until Gen 6 introduced the Fairy type).
  • In Police Quest 4: Open Season, you neutralize the Big Bad with a lighter and hairspray.
  • You are forced to euthanize your faithful Companion Cube in Portal by throwing it into an Aperture Science Emergency Intelligence Incinerator. Later on, you do the same to GLaDOS, in an act of sweet revenge (seeing as nothing else works and the game's second incinerator is conveniently located in the same room).
    • GLaDOS tries to do this to Chell.
    • "I'm not even angry. I'm being so sincere right now. Even though you broke my heart and killed me. And tore me to pieces, and threw every piece into a fire. As they burned it hurt because I WAS SO HAPPY FOR YOU!"
  • The Postal series has some very, very thoroughly planned fire effects for maximum Video Game Cruelty Potential. How much so?
    • After people have been on fire for a while, running around screaming in pain, they eventually fall down crawling with horrible burns all over their bodies until they finally die.
    • You can pour trails of gasoline on the floor and light it with a match when some poor sap walks near. Alternately, go to the club and dump pools of gasoline on the dance floor and the entrance, throw a match, and watch the carnage.
    • There's the napalm launcher weapon, which either fires impact-detonating napalm bombs or fires Hyper-Destructive Bouncing Ball napalm bombs that spill quickly-igniting fuel all over the place!
    • The A Week in Paradise mod/Steam version of the game adds an easy to find Aerosol Flamethrower weapon. Being a video game flamethrower however, it blocks a portion of the screen and has a very short flame but works well in puffs.
    • If you get caught on fire, which WILL happen if you're in close quarters with other people set ablaze since fire spreads easily, you can piss it out. Do it on people you burn to drag out their suffering longer as you kick them to death.
  • Since Stingy Jack's body in Pumpkin Jack is mostly composed of wood, cloth and pumpkin, Jack is especially vulnerable to fire.
  • This is also true for the MMORPG Ragnarok Online, where fire will deal up to 200% damage against undead enemies. Fire elemental weapons and spells can also be used against ghost enemies to deal 100% damage (unlike the "normal" element, dealing only 25% or even 0% damage). It is also effective against earth elemental foes.
  • In Remnant: From the Ashes, the Root are an evil race of alien plant monsters who have made humanity almost extinct. Barring two exceptions, the Root take extra damage from fire and one equipment you can start with or buy early in-game is a magical gun accessory that turns the bullets into potent firebolts that can ignite an enemy if you do enough damage. Expect to see a lot of burning Root...
  • Rengoku: In the second game Minos has flamethrowers and can leave trails of fire on the floor.
  • A number of enemies in the Resident Evil games are vulnerable to fire. Flame rounds, incendiary grenades, and explosive containers scattered around the environment provides various opportunities to take out large groups or deal severe damage to stronger enemies and bosses. Weaker enemies can be taken out if properly grouped together and from a distance, allowing the player a better chance of surviving as well saving bullets. The primary downside is the slight lack of supplies as well limited inventory space for flame rounds and incendiary grenades, so players have to careful on their use. Setting off explosive containers like red barrels and gas canisters require both timing and situational awareness so as to avoid getting flanked.
    • In Resident Evil (Remake), you have to either burn the bodies of zombies you kill (or blow their heads off), or they'll get up again as Crimson Heads that are stronger, faster, and with claws. Plant 42 is especially vunerable to fire if you didn't kill it with V-JOLT.
    • In Resident Evil 2, Ivies are bullet sponges, but the grenade launcher's flame rounds and the flamethrower will kill them but quick. And in the remake, the Ivy Zombies can only be killed with fire, as otherwise they'll keep getting up.
    • In Resident Evil 5, the first boss is the Uroboros Test Subject which can be killed with either a ton of bullets plus some help with explosive canisters to obtain its highly valuable Gold Ring to sell while getting the needed Incinerator Key, or be locked in an incinerator for a faster kill (while also destroying the Gold Ring). The later boss Uroboros Mkono has a rechargeable flamethrower and several gas canisters in its boss arena, so those two combined with flame rounds and incendiary grenades can weaken it to expose its weak spots.
  • The flamethrower in Return to Castle Wolfenstein works exceptionally well against undead enemies.
  • In Riviera: The Promised Land Cierra is a powerful witch who's strongest spells utilize fire magic.
  • In Sacrifice this is naturally the chief weapon of Pyro, god of fire. He has exactly one unit that does not use fire in some fashion, and every single spell involves fire. Even the "defensive" spell Pyro offers does nothing for your defense, and instead just sets you on fire, damaging nearby foes while you are conveniently immune.
  • Saints Row series has the Trail Blazing activity. Put on a fireproof suit, set yourself on fire, and go running into things on the back of an ATV. Things like pedestrians and other cars.
  • In Samurai Shodown II many characters in that game can, in some way shape or form, torch you. There's 17 total, and counted 11 (plus the support character) can leave you in flames. Toasty!
  • Can kill almost anything in Scribblenauts.
  • Serena implies this as the final fate of the protagonist, even though he most likely is already dead...
  • In the '80s version of Shadowgate, you at one point find yourself face-to-face with a dragon. Better grab that shield on the ground quick, or he'll turn you to charcoal.
  • In Shadow of the Colossus, the colossus Celosia can be held at bay by the hero holding a lit torch, despite the fact that the colossus dwells in a temple with four much larger fires (safely on pedestals) with no sign that it fears them at all.
    • This fact with the torch is vital to your defeat of Celosia: if you approach it while using the torch it'll back away from you, and this can be used to actually drive it off a ledge. The impact from hitting the ground below breaks the armour on Celosia's back, exposing the vital point. The trick now is getting onto its back while it's trying to charge you...
  • The pyrobot in Shatterhand.
  • Fire spells in Shining in the Darkness.
  • The main way of defeating the mind worms in Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri before they give you traumatic psychic hallucinations to render you helpless so they can eat your brain.
    • After building the Temple of Planet late in the game, you get this quote from Academician Prokhor Zakharov from "the Lab Three aftermath"
      Let the Gaians preach their silly religion, but one way or the other I shall see this compound burned, seared, and sterilized until every hiding place is found and until every last Mind Worm egg, every last slimy one, has been cooked to a smoking husk. That species shall be exterminated, I tell you! Exterminated!
  • In Solatorobo, Baion's Mini-Mecha, the BERIUS P-2, is specialized in killing things with fire. Certain other minor enemies as well, plus flamethrower traps placed here and there.
  • In the very first level of Sonic 3, Dr. Robotnik tries to dispose of a pesky blue Hedgehog — responsible for thwarting his plans for world domination, twice — by napalming Angel Island and setting the entire jungle on fire. Needless to say, it doesn't work.
  • In Sonic Forces, the first Wispon given to the Avatar is the Red Wispon, which acts as a flamethrower to destroy enemies.
  • Space Colony has flamethrowers to deal with fast growing plant life and insect infestations.
  • Spec Ops: The Line features white phosphorus mortars, which are a form of incendiary rounds. The effects of the phosphorus is horrifying — true to its real life counterpart.
  • Spelling Jungle: The Fire Trickster (or Fire Demon) tries to do this to Wali in both games.
  • In post-apocalyptic Czech computer game Spellcross, there's a level where your forces investigate a cemetary. They're then beset by hordes of undead and you find that your tank cannons and commandos' assault rifles have little effect. The game then pauses to tell you to retreat and research something that will work. You can then research "flamethrower" troopers and an IFV that mounts a "flamethrower". These will char through the ghosts and zombies. Interestingly flamethrower in this case means an incendiary missile launcher similar to the M202 Flash (and the game notes this as well).
  • In Spider-Man (2000), the best way to kill the symbiotes is with fire, either by hurling something explosive their way or with the fire web cartridge.
  • Spyro the Dragon: If you can't kill it with fire, you have to charge into it or spit rocks at it.
  • In Starcraft, this is how the Confederacy dealt with its rebels, and how the Protoss dealt with Zerg-infected planets.
    • Thanks to the Firebat, it's also how the Terrans deal with Zerglings, Zealots, other Firebats...
    • The sequel adds to the Terrans' arsenal the Hellion, a speedy four-wheeled craft with a flame thrower. The two are later merged into the Hellbat, with bonuses against light ground units... which just so happens to include all worker units.
    • By the time of the sequel, the Terran Dominion has established the aptly-named Prometheus Company, which, according to the unnamed Marine owning the Field Manual, burns more zerg-infested worlds than the Protoss.
  • Strife has both the Flamethrower and White Phosphorous Grenades. The Flamethrower is better than most video game ones, but still rather lack luster. The grenades, on the other hand, have a lingering burn effect that can easily dispose of even the toughest mobs in a matter of seconds.
  • The Mad Prince, Luca Blight, in Suikoden II is quite fond of this, burning down two villages and a fort over the course of the game, and using fire runes liberally in battle.
    • The player of course also gets access to Fire runes and Rage runes, which are quite effective at dispatching minor enemies.
  • Survivor: Fire: Losing can result in one or more characters burning to death.
  • The flamethrower is one of the most effective weapons in Syndicate, especially early in the game. It also causes the victim to thrash about in pain and set everything he touches on fire... Hilarity Ensues.
  • Several baddies in T'ai Fu: Wrath of the Tiger are able to be quickly dispatched by fire, including — bizarrely enough —stone mantis statues.
  • Lots of mage characters will have access to various fire spells in the Tales Series. A few of them get very firey Mystic Artes as well, including Guy and Richard.
  • Team Fortress 2 has the Pyro, who focuses on this trope. The primary weapon is a Flamethower, natch. Alternate weapons include a flare gun for harassing foes far away, a fire axe for a melee weapon, a special fire axe that deals critical damage to burning enemies and another special axe that sets ablaze everybody it hits.
    • Sniper using the Huntsman can also get a light from their Pyro buddies, giving them flaming arrows.
    • This is also the best method for sniffing out Spies. Even if they have the Dead Ringer (feign death watch) you can still light 'em up, and it's very satisfying when you do.
    • Meet the Pyro makes killing things with fire both dark and sinister, as well as magical and fun!
  • Tears to Tiara 2 has standard fire ball magic. Then there's Kleito's Dragon form shooting the Flames of Creation, powerful enough to kill over a dozen Krakens in shallow waters.
  • In Strategy RPG Templar Battleforce one of the templars you can recruit is called the Hydra, and "kill it with fire" is the Hydra's specialty.
  • TerraTech features two flamethrowers: the lightweight Reaper X-1 and the powerful, nicknameless Plasma Flamethrower.
  • Thief: Although not nearly as effective as holy water, fire-based attacks can kill undead foes (except for Fire Shadows, for obvious reasons). Fire arrows and explosive mines are Garret's most powerful weapons in general, though since the game is based around avoiding combat as much as possible, they generally don't see that much use.
    • The Hammerite and Mechanist Priests specialize in fire-elemental magic, and the first game has several other fire enemies; Fire Shadows, invincible flaming undead creatures that can be driven off and leave fire crystals behind; Fire Elementals, living flying fireballs aligned with the Pagans which launch smaller fireballs at enemies; and Fire Mages, who also launch small fireballs at enemies and can survive in lava.
  • TimeShift has the Hell-Fire, a sub-machine gun/flame-thrower combination with incendiary ammunition.
  • In Touhou Project, Utsuho Reiuji wanted to kill Gensokyo with fire. All of it. She gets better.
    • The "fire" in this case? nuclear. fusion. In the form of miniature stars.
  • In Town of Salem the Arsonist uses this method to try and eliminate Townies and Mafia alike. At night, he douses them in gasoline, waiting until he has enough to set them alight. The worst part? Not even the night immunities from Serial Killer and Godfather will protect them.
  • The Burninator flamethrower in Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is so powerful against every other thing in the game it makes the player feel kinda dirty for using it. One specific example is a sniper boss whose main power is the ability to teleport away and lay down a couple hits before you can get close. The flamethrower disrupts this ability and saps his health even faster than some mooks. Every enemy in the game — except for the Sheriff — is a pushover when you bring FIRE into the picture. This is based on Old World of Darkness rules (listed under Tabletop game)
  • Warframe has the Heat damage type, which is particularly effective against the Infested, a horrific combination of The Virus and a Grey Goo scenario. Because fire gains up to 50% additional damage against infested, and no infested health/armor class resists fire, this makes flames an ideal solution to pushing back the mutated hordes. Fortunately, the game is so kind as to provide a couple of obvious answers to this problem in the form of Ember, a purely fire-based Warframe, and the Ignis, a common and relatively inexpensive flamethrower.
  • Warhammer 40,000:
    • Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate: Chaos Space Marines and Daemons can soak a heap of bolter shells without flinching. But even Chaos Terminators can go down in one shot from a hand flamer let alone the bigger flaming weapons.
    • Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader: The Pyromancy skillset for psyker characters allows them to conjure fire out of thin air to attack their enemies.
  • In Microids's RTS Warrior Kings, Inquisitors of the Imperial faction have staffs that shoot bolts of holy fire. These are extremely powerful and can even do heavy damage to fortifications. The flame causes extra damage against demons of the Pagan faction. The Renaissance faction gets access to siege weapons like the Trebuchet and Rocket Tower, both have incendiary ammunition which works better than arrows and bullets. Finally all 3 sides have their anti-ship Corsair use flaming arrows, these will quickly sink any other ship including the unique cannon-firing ships of the Renaissance.
  • In Wasteland Empires on Facebook, fire weapons (Units called Arsonists and Fireflies are the two main ones, along with your various scrapyard cycles, bomber planes and helicopters)are the easiest and most effective way to take care of mutant outposts. And although different enemies have different items that work best against them, fire is always good to bring with you whoever you're fighting.
  • The Flashpak, in Wing Commander IV, destroys ships by igniting their internal atmosphere, burning them out from the inside.
  • World of Warcraft. Mages (Fireball etc.), Warlocks (Immolate), and Shamans (Flame Shock) all have direct fire spells. Hunters can lay down fire-based traps.
    • Priests have Holy Fire, which used to do Fire damage before later patches modified it into Holy damage instead. It still looks like they're being set on fire from above, though.
    • The tower of Karazhan has an encounter based upon the The Wizard of Oz. The Straw man hits fairly hard, and has a crippling weakness to fire. When a fire spell is cast on him, he has a high probability of simply running around in fear, unable to attack any of the raid. Many groups will have a caster dedicate themselves to spamming Fire spells on him.
    • Subverted in early raids since everything was immune to fire.
  • To help fight off the Mantid, the Golden Lotus have set up oil traps on the Serpent's Spine to pour oil on them, and set them on fire. Players taking part in a daily quest can also earn an achievement for killing 60 Mantid with a single torch.
  • Some bosses like Mimiron and Beastmaster Darmac take this advice and use it against the players. So much fire everywhere!
  • The Plasma Burst Generator in X3: Terran Conflict is a pirate-designed fighter-scale weapon that is effectively a flamethrower IN SPACE! It emits a broad cloud of superheated plasma that is murder on small ships and can do serious damage to capital ships due to Splash Damage Abuse. It's the only weapon to get a unique achievement, "Turn Up the Heat", for scoring twenty kills with it.
    • Another pirate-designed weapon is the frigate-scale Incendiary Bomb Launcher, which does burn damage when it hits.
  • The best way to kill Zombies in the XCOM series are with Incendiary/Phosphorous rounds, since these will automatically kill the Chryssalids/Tentaculats inside them.
    • XCOM 2 has the Hellweave armor, incendiary grenades/bombs, and the flamethrower heavy weapon, all of which involve using fire to kill targets. Fire isn't more or less effective on targets, but any target that is burning can't do anything but move (though if they hunker down, they put out the fire). The War of the Chosen expansion adds ADVENT Purifiers, who are intended to fight the Lost, but have no problem turning their weapons against XCOM. The biggest disadvantage to fire weapons is that they are completely useless against robotic enemies.
  • In X-Men: The Ravages of Apocalypse, a flamethrower is one of the weapons the player can acquire, and yes, you can reduce the X-Men to charred skeletons with it.
  • In Yu-Gi-Oh! The Falsebound Kingdom, Ryou Bakura's plan to help out is to sneak into the enemy base, wait a day, and then set the place on fire to take out the cannons. He's so eager to do this that Yami Yugi can't stop him.
  • A Zero Punctuation fan-game made for the Stonking Great Zero Punctuation Game Contest was a Beat 'em Up that used, among other things, a Guitar Hero controller for melee attacks as well as a variety of guns. However, the most effective weapon far and away was a simplified version of the aforementioned Far Cry 2 flamethrower, which the game's star himself described thusly after playing it.
    Yahtzee: "The flamethrower weapon is to balanced gameplay what a crowbar is to a kneecap."

Top