Kill The Ones You Love / Video Games

As a Death Trope, ALL Spoilers will be unmarked ahead. Beware.

Killing the Ones You Love in Video Games.

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• Imaginary!Barry in Alan Wake's second DLC "The Writer" lampshades this with the line "'kill your darlings'" as Alan goes to the Cabin for the final battle.
• ANNIE: Last Hope have more than one examples, including Mike being forced to pull an Offing the Offspring when his daughter Jessica gets infected with the zombie virus (he inevitably hangs himself after the deed is done) and when the titular player heroine has to fight and kill her close friend, Julia, after the latter was infected and turned into an unstoppable monster. Subverted in the final cutscene though, when you find your Love Interest Jack who's tortured beyond sanity; you seemingly kills him with an offscreen gunshot, but a cutscene following a one-year Time Skip reveals Jack to be alive.
• Batman: Arkham Asylum: Some of the Joker's men can be overheard talking about The Joker forcing them to do this to join his gang. One thug says the Joker demanded he kill his sister, which he was fine with, because he hated her anyway. The Joker made the same demand from another guy, despite him not actually having a sister, so he just went out and killed some random woman, which was apparently enough.
• BlazBlue: After her love interest, Lotte Carmine, lost his body and his mind and turned into Arakune, Litchi Faye-Ling set out to either cure him of his condition, or put an end to him, should that prove to be an impossible task, though no conclusion has been reached yet. The developers play this for heart-wrenching drama in the canon continuity but aren't shy to play it for laughs everywhere else.
• Breath of Fire:
  • In Breath of Fire I, Ryu and his friends are forced to fight and kill his sister Sara, who has been Brainwashed by Jade.
  • In Breath of Fire III, the team eventually is confronted by Teepo, Ryu and Rei's adopted sibling from the beginning of the game, now on the Big Bad's side. He does attempt to remove Ryu's powers non-lethally, but being unable to convince him to surrender them he resorts to a fight to the death. Suffice to say, Rei is devastated the remainder of the game.
  • Perhaps the most heartbreaking one occurs in Breath of Fire IV, where Cray has to perform a Mercy Kill on Elina, his sweetheart he's been looking for all over the world, at her request due to the horrible experiments Lord Yuna performed on her.
• Castlevania: Lament of Innocence: Painfully played straight, albeit with a dose of Foregone Conclusion, considering the game's placement in the official timeline. Just when Leon Belmont thought the whole nightmare was over after getting his betrothed, Sara Trantoul, away from the castle of Walter Bernhard, the game's primary antagonist, it turns out that the evil overlord had already subjected her to the curse of the vampire. Making things worse, conventional combat against Walter, the only method that may reverse the affliction, is impossible, due to the Ebony Stone, an item made with alchemy that, along with its noteworthy power to afflict the surrouding area with a state of endless night, also protects the vampire against virtually everything. It is here, when Rinaldo brings up the possibility of completing the Whip of Alchemy with a ritual involving the sacrifice of a tainted soul, that this trope rears its ugly head in Leon's mind. Put bluntly, he didn't take this well.
• Used all over the place in the Dept. Heaven series:
  • In Riviera: The Promised Land, the trope is zigzagged, with a huge deal made out of how Ein is going to have to fight his mentor and best friend Ledah; the player is made to expect this trope. The battle leaves Ledah badly injured and asking for a Mercy Kill, but Ein refuses on the grounds of no way is he doing that to a friend. Shortly after this, Ledah does die, but it's at the hands of an enemy character after all.
  • Yggdra Union has quite a lot of these — you are forced to kill the sympathetic queen of the Undines, either Roswell or Rosary (both of whom are otherwise recruitable), and a lot of innocent Bronquian civilians; in each case Yggdra and company are left wondering whether this is really the right thing to do. On top of that, there are three Shoot the Dog fights — against the Verlaine ruler you killed and Kylier after they Came Back Wrong, and Gulcasa, maddened by grief and about to unwittingly trigger The End of the World as We Know It by very literally sacrificing himself. The last three especially are infamous Tear Jerker moments.
    • There's also quite a bit of this in Blaze Union — C route gives us the quintessential Came Back Wrong fight with Jenon, and the bad end of the B route has Omnicidal Maniac Emilia in need of staking. The A route tries to pull this when Medoute concludes that Gulcasa has become a monster and decides to take him down herself, but Gulcasa gives this trope the finger and spares her, despite being told in no uncertain terms that this is incredibly dangerous. As this proves his humanity, however, Medoute and Jenon leave the country instead of going after him again.
  • Knights in the Nightmare has Willimgard unwittingly kill his own son, who's been turned into a werewolf, and later the now-harpy Pisce as well. The narrator calls him out on the latter.
  • Gungnir zigzags the trope much in the same manner as Riviera, but ultimately averts it against all odds: despite the huge, dramatic battle between Julio and Ragnus, Julio doesn't kill his brother at the end of it, and after a lot of yelling at the party, Ragnus gets up and walks away.
  • Gloria Union features three of these fights — Ishut against his childhood frienemy Velgas, Elisha and Zazarland against Elisha's mother Enryetta, and Ishut versus his badly-abused twin brother Ashley. Despite this being a Lighter and Softer game, the trope is played straight every time.
• Dragon Age II is madly in love with this trope. In the prologue, Aveline is forced to kill Wesley, her husband, to save him from the Darkspawn taint, unless Hawke does it for her. Later on, Anders has the choice between either killing his ex-lover Karl, or leaving him to remain Tranquil, which he and Karl both regard as a Fate Worse than Death. Hawke may be forced to Mercy Kill a tainted sibling, and Merrill may have to kill her mentor and adoptive mother, Keeper Marethari, as well as potentially her entire clan. Varric ends up having to either Mercy Kill his brother Bartrand, or spend the rest of his life caring for him as he has been driven completely insane by the idol (after Bartrand tried to kill him). Fenris may kill his sister, in revenge for betraying him to his former master. And in the endgame, Hawke may kill their lover, if they romanced Anders and chooses to kill him after he blows up the Chantry. Damn.
• In Final Fantasy Tactics: Ramza is forced to kill his brother Zalbaag, who has been reanimated as a vampire by Folmarv and as he can't control his own body, pleads for death.
• Final Fantasy X: Invokes this one hard. Summoners make a pilgrimage across Spira to gather Aeons and prepare for a battle against the world-destroying entity Sin, accompanied by their closest friends as Guardians. This gives the world a period of Calm before Sin inevitably comes back and the process has to start again with another Summoner. Everyone but Tidus knows that the Summoner always dies at the end of their pilgrimage while facing Sin. Worse, Lady Yunalesca lays out the way to do it — the Summoner must make a Human Sacrifice of one of their Guardians to make an Aeon. And even worse, that new Aeon will become the next Sin. But leave it to Tidus to ask all the wrong questions, Yuna to refuse that option, and Auron to engineer the perfect circumstances to make Screw Destiny a valid option. The fact that Tidus's estranged father is the current Sin also makes the final Boss Battle this trope.
• Final Fantasy XII approaches Dragon Age II territory here, doing this four times with a fifth one in the backstory (it's implied that part of Big Bad Vayne's Start of Darkness was being tasked with killing his own two older brothers for treason against the Empire).
  • Big Bad Vayne forces Gabranth to kill his close friend and comrade Drace.
  • The Boss Battle against Mad Scientist Dr. Cid is this, since he's Balthier's estranged father.
  • The Boss Battle against Gabranth is also this, being that he's Basch's estranged twin brother. He's mortally wounded, but they reconcile in the end before his death.
  • Larsa, who's only twelve, takes part in the Final Boss battle against his beloved older brother Vayne.
• Minerva from Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon wants to be the one to kill her brother Michalis, an enemy of the protagonist's group:
  Minerva: (...) Even now, some part of me loves him.
  Minerva: ...I love him enough to spare him death on some stranger's sword, do you see? Let him be punished by my hands.
  • Can be done in Fire Emblem: Awakening. Lucina goes to kill the Avatar when she realizes that the Avatar will soon kill Chrom (her father). If the Avatar is Lucina's Mother or Husband, the scene gets very emotional.
  • Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia: Alm is forced to kill Celica after the latter turns into a witch by Jedah. Thanks to Mila's powers however, she gets better.
    • Some of the other games can provoke this if you use a certain character in a certain fight. Nino from Blazing Sword avoids this when facing off with her adoptive mother as by that point she's realized that said mother is actually an inhuman monster, but the very next chapter pits the army against the remnants of the Black Fang led by one of her stepbrothers, and the Final Chapter has Morphs of both of her stepbrothers and her stepfather. Myrrh, from Sacred Stones, can be made to fight the zombified remains of her father.
• By the time of Gears of War 2, Dom has been searching for his missing wife for years... Throughout the course of the game he finally finds her.... and she's been lobotomized, tortured, and who knows what else, leaving her an Empty Shell. Dom does the humane thing and delivers a Mercy Kill.
• In Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, CJ is forced to kill his childhood friends Big Smoke and Ryder after they betray the Grove Street Families gang to side with their rivalry gang, the Ballas. He feels genuine remorse for killing them both.
• GreedFall: The ending of the game gives De Sardet the option to stab and kill their cousin, Constantin, with whom they have a very close relationship with, because of him losing his sanity due to the corruption the Malichor had done to him.
• Hyperdimension Neptunia mk2: In the Conquest Ending, Nepgear has to kill all of the other CPUs and Candidates, or those she can't bring herself to kill do it for her. You watch each of the other playable characters die slowly and painfully as they get stabbed by the Gehaburn. It's especially painful to hear Ram and Rom hysterically scream that they don't want to die as they slowly expire in excruciating pain.
• In Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days Roxas is forced to kill Xion who goads him into killing her so the memories used to construct her return to Sora. She also unwittingly saps strength from Roxas so only one of them can live. By the time this happens she is Roxas' only friend, as Axel's actions drove the two apart. Thankfully she gets better in Kingdom Hearts III.
• In Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords Darth Sion tries to kill the Jedi Exile regardless of gender, but if the Exile is female he will explain that the Big Bad of the game is (at least partially) the cause of his current status as a more or less corpse and part of the reason he's trying to kill her is to spare her the same fate.
• Left 4 Dead: In Zoey's backstory, she shot her father so that he would not become infected after being bitten. However, It's heavily implied that he was a carrier (immune), but Zoey couldn't have possibly known this...
• This may happen in Mass Effect 3 if you played a male Shepard who romanced Jack in the second game and then didn't do the Grissom Academy sidequest — when you get to the Cerberus base in the endgame, you'll find audio logs of Jack being tortured and then have to fight and kill her after she's been forcibly transformed into a Phantom.
• Near the end of Mega Man X4, Iris goes crazy with grief after Zero killed her brother Colonel and fights him despite the two obviously having a thing for each other. Zero defeats her and although he didn't intend to kill her, she ends up dying at his hands. This left an extremely deep scar on his heart that never fully goes away.
• Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater. The player, as Naked Snake, is actually forced to press the button and shoot The Boss while she's down.
  • The end cutscene twists the knife by revealing that The Boss was a Fake Defector after all, and it was her sworn duty to be killed by Snake in order to prevent a nuclear war.
  • The Boss had to experience something similar: She ended up having to go to Tselinoyarsk in 1962 to fight The Sorrow, and the flashbacks shown when Snake regains consciousness implies that she was unwilling to kill The Sorrow. Peace Walker explains the exact circumstances of what happened: The Philosophers forced them to fight each other to the death under the threat of Ocelot's life if both survive.
• Re:Kuroi: During the Night of Black Snow, Nina's family and their friends (who happened to be Kaito's parents) transformed into monsters. Nina awakens her magic and kills them in self-defense.
• Remorse: The List have a boss fight where you face your deceased mother, revived by the Blood Curse into becoming a demon, and you have no choice but to kill her.
• Helena in Resident Evil 6, when she's forced to kill her younger sister Deborah who's been infected by the C-virus.
• Shin Megami Tensei, particularly mainline games, likes to do this, as a consequence of pursuing one alignment and rejecting the others:
  • Shin Megami Tensei I: Side with Law? Your Law-aligned friend is killed at the hands of your Chaos-aligned friend, and then you have to kill your Chaos friend. Side with Chaos? After your Chaos friend is killed by an artifact that he couldn't handle, you then have to fight your Law friend. On Neutral? You kill both because they firmly believe that the concept of a balance between Law and Chaos is bullcrap.
  • You have to do this in Shin Megami Tensei III: Nocturne if you take the Neutral path, in order to stop your friends from bringing their selfish ideas of paradise to reality. Or, in fact, if you take any other path. You can't be allied to both Chiaki and Isamu after all, you'll have to fight at least one of them.
  • In Shin Megami Tensei IV, if you take the Law or Neutral path, you must fight Walter, who has merged with Lucifer. Taking the Neutral or Chaos path means that you have to fight Jonathan, who has merged with the angels. Taking the Law or Chaos path causes Isabeau to attempt to stop you on behalf of humanity. Either way, you'll wind up killing half of your old fellows by the end of the game.
  • In Shin Megami Tensei IV: Apocalypse, Dagda eventually reveals to you that his plans for overthrowing YHVH's rule and instilling you as the creator god of a new universe involve killing a large chunk of humanity in order to reap enough souls to power the creation of the new universe. Yes, you can choose to go along with his plans instead of opposing him. The first people on the chopping block? Six of the seven companions^note Asahi's soul is in captivity during this particular event who have been traveling around Tokyo with you.
  • In Shin Megami Tensei V, your ascent of the Empyrean Pillar is interrupted by a three-way staredown - Abdiel and Dazai vs Tsukuyomi and Yuzuru vs Nuwa and Shohei. No matter which side you support, your chosen associate is killed and you must strike down the other two. Unfortunately, none of them are willing to up and share the Throne of Creation with you at the drop of a hat and you don't get a fourth option. Well, you do, but it's a hell of a Guide Dang It! and still requires taking two sides out.
• Silent Hill: Homecoming has this as the first of two choices (or three, depending on which ending you're going for) that determine the ending you get. Alex's mother is strapped to a device that is about to rip her apart, and you are given the choice to either end her life or try (and fail) to get her out. Shooting her leads to a somewhat happier ending.
• Very prevalent in Tales of Symphonia. Let's see...
  • It's part of the backstory of four members of the main cast for similar reasons (we play Lloyd and Genis as they're made to kill Marble, Regal killed his lover and Kratos killed his wife.)
    • The fight with Marble does this weird after the fight, Marble (who looks like a monster, and nothing like her original form) seems to be in much better shape then Lloyd and Genis. The only time she seems to be in any sort of pain is when she struggles to take back control of her body (which is when Lloyd and Genis learn who she is). After saying her goodbyes, she latches onto Forcystus and explodes. Despite Magnius' insistence that they killed her (who at the time is trying to turn Marble's granddaughter against the party, by leaving out details like that fact that Marble was turned into a monster with no control over her body, and therefore is an even less reliable source of information then normal), that might not be the case.
  • In an alternate route, it's possible to fight and kill Zelos — very close to one member of the cast (who mourns him) and a character many players adore.
  • Less prominently, Yuan is fighting to prevent the resurrection of his fiancée.
  • Subverted when Lloyd has to fight his father, who fully intends to die but ends up saved against his will.
  • The last boss battle is against Mithos in child form and you can have Genis, who befriended him, join in the fight.
  • And in the sequel, the last two boss battles are Emil VS Richter, in which Emil has always idolized Richter and looks exactly like Richter's dead best friend, then Emil VS his crush Marta and friend Lloyd, which is also a very effective and unexpected Player Punch since Marta was the only other permanent member of your party for the entire game, and Lloyd is the hero of the first game.
• In Tenchu 2: Birth of the Stealth Assassins, Ayame is faced with having to fight Tatsumaru, a former Azuma ninja and her crush, and kill him in battle after his betrayal and subsequent raid on the Azuma Village.
• In Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume, the titular feather is used to sacrifice party members, but it will only work on people who already trust you as a friend. So they have to like you for you to kill them.
• The Walking Dead:
  • Clementine may do this to Lee to prevent reanimation and as a Mercy Kill before he completely succumbs to the bite.
  • Duck gets bitten by a walker, forcing everyone to kill him before he turns into a walker. Katjaa tries to kill him herself, but can't do it and shoots herself. Then you get to choose to let Kenny shoot him, or do it yourself.
  • At the end of Season 2, Clementine forced to either stop an enraged Kenny from killing Jane by shooting him or look away and let him finish the job.
• In The World Ends with You Joshua tries to invoke this by telling Neku that if he shoots him, that he'll give him the job of Composer. Luckily for both of them, Neku refused to do this, and it was just a test.

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