Web Video / PBG Hardcore

"The only catch is...in this adventure...if you die...you're dead for good."

"PBG Hardcore" is an online Let's Play series created by PeanutButterGamer, originally featured on his PBGGameplay YouTube channel and later brought back on the main Normal Boots channel. The concept for the series centers around PBG and his friends trying to complete an objective in a game, but with the catch that if any of them die, they're eliminated for the rest of the season.

Beginning in 2012, the series has accumulated many seasons, with more in planning. There are also three unofficial seasons: PBG personally considers Pokemon Alpha Sapphire and Fallout 4 to be one-man "Hardcore!" seasons, while Diablo III: Reaper of Souls aired on the Polaris channel and starred PBG, JonTron, Jesse Cox, and five other Polaris-exclusive members. Playlists of the Hardcores so far can be found here.

List of "Hardcore!" Seasons & Members

Seasons

1. Minecraft
2. DayZ
3. Terraria
4. Minecraft #2
5. Diablo II
6. Minecraft #3
7. MineZ
8. Terraria #2
9. Minecraft #4
10. Minecraft #5
11. Terraria #3
12. MineZ #2
13. Minecraft #6
14. Starbound
15. Minecraft #7
16. Minecraft NB #1

"Hardcore Shorts!"

• Mount & Blade: Napoleonic Wars - Two episodes

Unofficial Seasons

• Diablo III: Reaper of Souls
• Pokémon Alpha Sapphire Nuzlocke!
• Fallout 4 ONLY ONE LIFE!

Regulars

• Austin Hargrave / PeanutButterGamer (every season)
• Dean Elazab (every season except Starbound and Minecraft NB #1)
• Barry Kramer from Game Grumps (every season except Minecraft #3 and #6, Terraria #3, and Minecraft NB #1)
• Jeff Fabre / SpaceHamster (Terraria #1, Mount & Blade, every season beginning with MineZ #1, except Minecraft NB #1)
• Jared Knabenbauer / ProJared (DayZ, Minecraft #2, #3, and #5, MineZ #1, every season beginning with MineZ #2, except Minecraft NB #1)

Former Regulars

• Stewart Hargrave / Professor McJones (every season up through Minecraft #6)
• Jon Jafari / JonTron (Minecraft #1 and #3, DayZ, Terraria #1)

Recurring Guests

• Jirard Khalil / The Completionist (Minecraft #1, Diablo II, Starbound, Minecraft NB #1)
• Jon Wheeler / ProtonJon (Terraria #2 and #3, Minecraft NB #1)
• Luke Sizemore / Yungtown (Terraria #3, Starbound, Minecraft #7)
• Reese Dressler / Lucahjin (Terraria #3, Starbound, Minecraft NB #1)
• Shane Gill / DidYouKnowGaming? (Mount & Blade, Minecraft #3, Minecraft NB #1)
• Ian MacLeod / brutalmoose (Mount & Blade, MineZ #1 and #2)
• Ross O'Donavan from Game Grumps (DayZ, Diablo II)
• Paul Ritchey from Continue? (Terraria #1, Diablo II)
• Ray Narvaez, Jr. / BrownMan (Minecraft #5 and #7)
• Chad Bergstrom / Chadtronic (Minecraft #6, Minecraft NB #1)

One-time Guests

• Lee Brown / Soah (Minecraft #1)
• Tim Bishop / NintendoCapriSun (Minecraft #2)
• Kyle Reedy / Kyrak Jellyman (Minecraft #2)
• Max Gleason / Smooth McGroove (Minecraft #3)
• Satchell Drakes / Satchbag's Goods (Terraria #2)
• James Caddick / Caddicarus (Minecraft #4)
• Brooke Leigh / PressHeartToContinue (Minecraft #6)
• Jesse Cox / Jesse Cox (Starbound)
• Amber Herring / Lady Pelvic (Minecraft NB #1)

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Due to the sheer volume of Character Deaths in the series, only spoilers for the most recent season and for season endings will be consistently covered up. Most other spoilers are unmarked. You Have Been Warned!

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The Hardcore series contains examples of:

• Aerith and Bob:
  • So we have PeanutButterGamer, Space Hamster, JonTron, and some guys named Dean and Barry. Played with in that it's because Dean and Barry don't have their own monikers and that everyone usually goes by their first names (which are also plain) anyways.
  • In Minecraft #6, Jared names the group's pet pigs Larry and Boscovius.
• Alas, Poor Scrappy: PBG lampshades this in-universe upon (mistakenly) thinking his dog died in Episode 10 of Minecraft #3:
  PBG: My dog!
  McJones: I thought you said you didn't care about him.
  PBG: I didn't care about him until he died!
• And the Adventure Continues:
  • Diablo II has what ultimately turns out to be a subversion. In Part 8, PBG discusses with the other players that killing Diablo at the end of Act IV will technically complete their season goal and will count as a victory no matter what, but that they'll continue on anyway to try and beat Baal at the end of Act V. By the time the Diablo confrontation rolls around, however, and the party has been reduced to just Paul and Jirard, they claim their victory against Diablo and the season ultimately ends there.
  • Another subversion happens in Terraria #3. After they defeat the Wall of Flesh, McJones tells Lucah and Yungtown that the next major goal is to defeat the Moon Lord and he gets them psyched up for the confrontation. However, that ending is revealed to be a fakeout, and in the actual ending, they all die in a Post-Climax Confrontation with a goblin army.
• And This Is for...:
  • In MineZ #1 Episode 11, after Jared is blown apart by a Zombie Pigman, some regular zombies run toward the group. Jeff attacks one of them with an axe and cries out, "This is for Jared!"
  • A subverted example in Minecraft #2 Episode 5. After Dean dies, PBG viciously declares he's going to kill all the zombies and monsters, "For Dean!", but then he quickly turns around and goes back inside the house instead.
• Anti-Climax:
  • At the end of the eighth episode of Minecraft #4, we leave off on a cliffhanger as Jeff is stuck on a ladder way high up and Dean accidentally mines a block out from under Jeff. At the start of Episode 9, we see the conclusion... he doesn't fall far and only takes a heart-and-a-half of damage.
    Dean: Ohhhh-ho! Oh-hoh-hoh! Oh man, my heart! I just thought I murdered my friend!
  • In Minecraft #5, the teaser for the fifteenth episode shows what appears to be an AFK McJones with a Zombie Pigman approaching him for the kill. The actual episode actually shows that the Pigman isn't hostile at all and is casually walking up to him while he's sorting through his inventory. Granted, he DID die in this episode.
  • Another Minecraft #5 moment sees SpaceHamster ambushed by a creeper from behind while fighting a zombie at the end of Episode 19, cutting away before it explodes to an ominous close-up outro shot of a creeper hissing. Cut to Episode 20, and while he ends up taking half his health in damage, he survives none the worse for wear. Eerily and brilliantly subverted, however, later in that same episode, as the outro shot ended up not alluding to Jeff's death by surprise creeper, but PBG's.
  • With all the hype and tension built in Terraria #3 for every major boss battle, including the final battle against the Wall of Flesh, and each session of intensive preparation by McJones to ensure the group's chances, all of them go down very quickly and easily, generally without even posing enough of a threat to get anyone below half health, the Wall of Flesh being no exception. McJones himself seems underwhelmed at how easily it went down, considering the final battles of previous seasons, including his own against the Wall in Terraria #2.
    McJones: Aww, this is so much easier than I expected!
  • The surprise Post-Climax Confrontation with the Hardmode goblin army in Terraria #3, on the other hand...
  • MineZ #2 had an episode end with Jared letting out a bloodcurling scream as he falls into a gap. The next episode shows the same scene from a different perspective, and reveals that Jared survived the fall, losing about half of his health bar.
  • In MineZ #2, after 11 episodes of fighting their way through the world of MineZ, Team Bowl II had finally made their way to the elusive Floating Isles. After one final session of tense preparation, Barry and PBG both die on the bridge to the isles, with Barry not even making a single jump, and the remaining three all die to literal hordes of zombies shortly afterwards.
• Arc Words:
  • "The only catch is in this adventure, if you die, you're dead for good." These words are the show's entire premise. The introduction in nearly every episode repeats these words to remind everyone that every player only has one life to live.
  • Across all series, the phrase "Not like this!" is usually said as a Survival Mantra. In-series, it was first coined by Dean, and by pure coincidence, other players ended up using this phrase during a last stand, like Barry and Luke.
  • In Minecraft #5, variations of "Whoever finds/gets diamonds is gonna die next" are jokingly said multiple times by several people. Doubles as foreshadowing.
  • In Terraria #3, a much more high spirited one in the form of "Follow your dreams." First said by Luke at the beginning of the series and one of the quotes in the intro, it's said again by Lucah close to the end of the series after she saves Luke's life from drowning, which proudly resonates with them all the way to the Wall of Flesh.
  • In Minecraft #6: "The journey will begin with fire." McJones, Dodger, and PBG all die to lava.
• Art Evolution: Has its own page.
• Ascended Fanboy: Well, in a sense. Dean used to make several references to Achievement Hunter in the earlier Hardcore seasons. Come Minecraft #5, and former Hunter Ray Narvaez, Jr. joins the cast. Ray ends up recognizing many of Dean's Call Backs and In Jokes and their banter has them seen by many as bonafide Bash Brothers.
• Ascended Extra:
  • Although none of the players are extras, per say, certain people in Hardcore seasons often become more prominent when the others around them die off and they become the only ones left. Especially when said survivors are otherwise quiet people. Barry in Minecraft #2, and Shane and Smooth in Minecraft #3 are the most standout examples of this.
  • This aspect also appears in some of the later seasons when the group splits into two, including the actual calls between the players. It recreates the effect of simply not having the players alive at all.
  • In Minecraft #1 and Terraria #1, respectively, Jirard lasts a mere one episode before going AFK, and Paul only makes it about halfway (in the already short season) before dying offscreen. In Diablo II, they both make their grand comebacks, not only lasting to the end of the season, but slaying Diablo alongside each other and living to tell the tale as well.
  • As an overarching example, Jeff started out as an occasional guest on the series, eventually moving on to become a series regular and the main editor of the videos until stepping down in favor of the new editor, Todd. Lampshaded in Minecraft #4:
    PBG: Every main series cast member now has finally made it to the end of a series.
    Jeff: I'm main?! I'm a main?! Sweet!
• As Himself:
  • In Minecraft #3, Smooth McGroove has his player's skin designed after himself.
  • ProtonJon's skin in Minecraft NB #1 is himself appearing as 'Rosa!Jon,' a memetically-popular alter ego among his fanbase.
• Awakening the Sleeping Giant: In MineZ #2, the team believes that their superior numbers will give them an insurmountable edge when they try to kill a better equipped player in a 6 vs 1 ambush, despite that player announcing that he was friendly, and originally trying to flee when the team starts shooting him with their bows. They're proven horribly wrong, as once the player decides to fight back, he cuts McJones down in self-defense when the player decides to fight back, and ultimately escapes alive.
  ACrispyWaluigi: i didnt want to do this
• Back from the Dead: Minecraft #6 has the Totem of Undying in it, allowing the party to revive one of their fallen if they so desire. Ultimately, they use it on Dodger, who'd managed to find it and stay alive before dying right outside their house.
• Battle Theme Music:
  • During the earlier seasons, a common battle track was the Demon's Souls "Vanguard" theme, which often played whenever the group began to approach an established threat.
  • During Jeff's stint as series editor from Minecraft #3 to Minecraft #4, the battle theme from The Last Story was added to the mix, which played for situations involving more immediate danger.
  • The the first phase theme of the final boss from Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale was used for Diablo in Diablo II, every boss fight (except the final, ironically) in Terraria #1 and #2, the Goblin Army battle in Terraria #2, and the Giant in MineZ #1.
  • Music selection would begin to branch out significantly as Todd became editor, with over half of the tracks ever used throughout the series being employed during Minecraft #5 and Terraria #3 alone.
• Bittersweet Ending:
  • The Wall of Flesh has finally been defeated in Terraria #3 after tormenting the cast (most notably McJones) for two seasons prior, but when they return to the surface to celebrate, they are greeted by the Hardmode goblin army, making short work of them and crushing their spirits.
  • Dean, Jeff, and Chad beat the Wither in Minecraft #6, but Jared dies mere seconds before the Wither does after taking the brunt of the Wither's damage.
• Black Dude Dies First: It took a few seasons of Hardcore, but in Part 8 of Terraria #2^note "FANART!", this finally came to pass thanks to Satchbag falling down a deep hole. Doubly ironic, as Satchbag is the first black group member to ever appear in Hardcore.
• Blatant Lies:
  • In Minecraft #1, Episode 3, after Dean kills a spider:
    McJones: Did you get any string?
    Dean: No. *beat* But if I did, how do I make a bow?
    McJones: You have string, don't you?
  • In Minecraft #3, Episode 6, Jon manages to aggro an Enderman, and claims that he didn't look at it. PBG actually gets a look at him and the Enderman just before the attack, and Jon was indeed looking straight at it.
• Boom, Headshot!:
  • In Minecraft #3, Episode 7, this is how Jon meets his end, thanks to a skeleton and being poisoned by a witch prior to it.
  • In MineZ #1, Episode 14, this is how PBG puts down his brother's zombie as a Mercy Kill.
  • And in Minecraft #5, Episode 15, Ray delivers one to a Blazeman that was in the way of building the bridge to the second Nether fortress, complete with the famous voice clip from Halo.
• Bottomless Pit: The goal of MineZ #2 is to reach the top of the Floating Isles, which are surrounded by a bottomless chasm. The danger of instantly falling to their death when they arrive is frequently mentioned throughout the series. The pit ultimately claims the lives of Barry (who lost his needed momentum just before jumping by clipping a wall), PBG (who got knocked into it by a Zombie despite surviving the first parkour segment), and Jared (who tried to retreat from a losing battle against a horde of Zombies, only to get hit by one of them right as he was at the edge, causing him to miss his jump).
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: The group rarely refers to the audience. The main exception to this is either whenever the living players welcome back the viewers to the show, or whenever the group is brought down to a single person, because there's no one else to talk to.
• Breather Episode:
  • After a season full of tense and surprisingly dark moments, Episode 15 of MineZ #1 mostly consists of "Team PBG" peacefully swimming to Greyvale and encountering nothing dangerous, in contrast to the shock of McJones's death in the previous episode. It's even more of a breather when you compare it to the next episode where everyone dies.
  • Episode 21 of Minecraft #5 has some action, but all in all it is a pretty mellow episode of SpaceHamster sailing without any danger, attempting to befriend a horse, and taking care of PBG's grave.
  • Episodes 16 and 17 of Terraria #3 consist of most of the group calmly fishing for helpful items and having many a Seinfeldian Conversation in the process, each episode ending with confident refights with the Brain of Cthulhu.
• Brick Joke:
  • In Episode 4 of Minecraft #3, Jon installs a pillar of flowing lava in the middle of the house and everybody freaks out. Understandably, because in the next episode the house burns down because of it.
  • In the first episode of Minecraft #4, Dean bring up that the achievements popping up for everyone causes "[his] heart [to stop]", because they look like death notifications. He then later brings up that once all the initial ones are all gotten and someone winds up getting a rare one later on, everyone is gonna freak. Cue Episode 5, which ends with everyone going into shock when a notification pops up saying that Barry got the "Getting Wood" achievement.
• Broken Win/Loss Streak:
  • In Terraria #3, after two failed seasons, the team finally emerges victorious against the Wall of Flesh.
  • In Minecraft #6, after two previous seasons dedicated to killing the Wither that ended in disaster simply in trying to obtain three Wither Skulls to summon it, the survivors manage to not only collect enough Skulls, but successfully kill the Wither.
  • Also in Minecraft #6, after six seasons (between DayZ, Minecraft, and MineZ) with Jared as a guest star all ending in failure, the streak is finally broken with a victory
• But Wait, There's More!: Discussed and invoked in Episode 22 of Terraria #2:
  Jeff: But wait, there's more!
  McJones: Really? How could this offer get any better?!
  Jeff: Double everything! Triple everything!
  McJones: ...including the price?
  Jeff: Yeah.
• Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": Dean has the tendency to call baby Zombies and baby Zombie Pigmen "Wiggly Squigglies". This habit eventually rubs off on the other players.
• Call-Back:
  • The finale of Minecraft #2. It has a similar "Seven heroes set out to [insert goal here]; only [x] remain" intro to the last episode of the first Minecraft Hardcore.
  • In Terraria #3, the two groups are shown as Team 1 and Team B, calling back to MineZ #1.
  • In Starbound, the groups are called Team 1 and Team J. ^note Why Team J? Because all the members of the team have names that start with a "J": Jared, Jirard, Jeff, and Jesse.
  • The Chirping Crickets scene that announced Dean's death in MineZ #1 is done again in Minecraft #7 to reveal that he went AFK while the group went to the jungle.
• Captain Obvious: In Minecraft #1, Episode 13:
  [as PBG, Barry, and Dean are being assaulted by a group of blazes]
  Jon: [calmly] There's a blaze right there.^note Jon may have been referring to a different blaze, as he doesn't appear to be near the group under attack, but since we're seeing the scene from PBG's perspective it seems like this trope nonetheless.
• Chekhov's Gun:
  • The Dean Sword in Minecraft #2 (which channels Dean, allowing him speak to Barry in his quest as the group's Sole Survivor in the final episode) and Jon's lava lamp in Minecraft #3 (which ends up burning their entire house down).
  • Downplayed, but in Terraria #3, the spawn-decreasing Peace Candles that Luke carries around in the later, enemy-abundant areas of the game were only made possible to craft by the Pink Gel from the Pinky that PBG so "uselessly wasted his time" on killing in the montage before Episode 15.
  • Earlier in Episode 15 of Starbound, Jeff finds a sword that allows him to teleport a short distance in front of him. Later in the episode, he accidentally activates it while engaging an enemy above a massive pit, sending him plummeting to his doom.
  • Also in Starbound, Jesse buys an accessory that allows him to transform into a Morph Ball that can climb up walls instead of the more popular Double Jump. While mocked for it initially, it becomes one of the primary reasons the party makes it to Asra Nox, since Jesse could safely roll to the bottom of the various elevator shafts and activate said elevator.
• Chronically Killed Actor: None of the series regulars have a very good track record. Minecraft #6 reaches a new level with Dodger, who, as Dean points out, is the only player to die twice in a row in the same season.
• Climax Boss:
  • The Eye of Cthulhu in Terraria #1, after everyone but PBG and Jeff have already died, and they were counting on beating it to have any chance of progressing to the Wall of Flesh. It doesn't work out, of course. Notably, this is the only instance throughout the whole series where the season ends in defeat at the hands of any boss other than the final. It shapes up to be this way once more in Terraria #2 and #3, only the party is much more intact and prepared now than back in Terraria #1, curbstomping it multiple times.
  • ACrispyWaluigi in MineZ #2, the final major encounter the group faces before The Floating Islands and the only enemy to have ever been another player. They proved to be exceptionally skilled in combat, tanking dozens of powerful hits with their armor and potions, dishing out deadly damage in return, and dodging several arrows fired their way, before finally killing McJones, none the worse for wear in the long run.
• Companion Cube: A literal example. In Minecraft #2, after all of his friends are killed, Barry becomes attached to a Wither skull named Jeffrey.
• Controllable Helplessness:
  • Minecraft #1: Right as the group reaches The End, the Ender Dragon swoops in and knocks McJones off the spawn tower, leaving him to watch as he falls into the void and dies.
  • Minecraft #3: After striking lava while digging into a wall in the Nether, PBG and McJones both slowly burn to death with no way to save themselves.
  • MineZ #1: All throughout the season whenever someone gets poisoned and the team has nothing to cure them with, leaving everyone helpless as the poisoned members are reduced to half a heart.
  • Occurs quite frequently in Minecraft #5:
    • While the group is exploring a mineshaft, Barry got stuck in a spider web directly in front of a cave spider spawner, in a position where no one else can help him. Though the situation was escapable, in a panic all Barry could think to do was swing his sword in vain at the last remaining cave spider as it sat there, watching, before going in for the kill.
    • While underground mining for diamonds, Jared got knocked into a pool of lava by a spider, and was unable to escape due to the spider continually attacking him from the rim of the lava. All he could do was throw his diamond sword, hoping someone could catch it.
    • After the first Nether Fortress was found to be without any Netherwart, Ray, Jeff, and Dean decided to mine through the wall in an attempt to find another one. After Ray mined a block causing lava to pour out onto Dean, he didn't even struggle, but just stood there, waiting until he was dead.
    • In The End, Jeff was inside the cage with the last End Crystal when the dragon fired an End Charge through the slit that Jeff had entered through. He frantically tried to escape, but there was nothing he could do.
• Covers Always Lie: In the Hardcore series, the thumbnails often do this to avoid spoilers. For example, in Minecraft #3: Episode 7's thumbnail shows Dean, even though he had already died two episodes ago.
• Cowboy BeBop at His Computer: invoked In reference to Dean's skin in Minecraft #4 (Hisoka from Hunter × Hunter), PBG calls him "an anime".
• Damn You, Muscle Memory!:
  • The change in combat mechanics for Minecraft #5 were a bit tricky for the group to get used to, but this is especially the case for PBG when he accidentally aggroes several Zombie Pigmen in the Nether after not realizing that the first swing of a sword now hits multiple enemies in a front-facing, sweeping motion.
  • PBG sometimes calls Minecraft iron, "copper", usually in hardcore playthroughs after Terraria ones.
• Darker and Edgier:
  • Minecraft #2 acts as this to the first season. In contrast to the more upbeat and swashbuckling tone of the first, Minecraft #2 is darker and more melancholy, as the group slowly falls apart and their goal begins to seem more and more hopeless. This season plays the trope to the very end, with Barry's sanity slipping away as he's left to roam the pathways of the Nether Fortress in a seemingly never-ending quest to gather more Wither skeletons, and ultimately dies alone.
  • MineZ is a lot darker than previous installments and is much more serious at points. This grows increasingly prominent throughout the season, especially after PBG, Dean, and McJones become infected and have to be left behind, prompting the group to split up, a first in the series. The remainder of the group lampshade this when they lament that this season is the most depressing yet. This season too plays this trope right to the very end, and through all of the dramatic and depressing twists and turns, the season ends on one of the most climactic (but failed) Final Boss battles up to that point.
  • The series again turned darker and more serious once Todd stepped up to the editor's seat, starting with Minecraft #5. After the formalities of the season were out of the way and everyone was warmed up, the later episodes had a tendency to emphasize each moment of drama and tension over comedy, building up every possible situation as a potential threat to be on the edge of your seat for, and liberally editing any dangerous moment that played out, as well as dramatizing each and every death to the fullest.
  • Compared to PBG's main videos, swearing is more frequent. This is mostly because while PBG avoids swearing in his usual videos to keep things family friendly, he has no such reservations in real life, and as no-one else minds swearing either it's just easier to let everyone be themselves instead of keeping up a rule that's bound to be broken by accident anyway. It's not necessarily excessive, but compared to the usual "none", it's still noticeable.
• Death by Irony: Lots to go around.
  • Minecraft #1: The Completionist is the first person to be eliminated (and on the first episode, no less), while Soah dies from digging into lava after warning the party about digging into lava. Later on, McJones valiantly leads the group on a long journey across different biomes and down into the ocean to reach the stronghold and find the End Portal. They successfully locate it with no casualties along the way... only for McJones to abruptly die seconds after entering the portal.
  • DayZ: All over the place. PBG, Jon, and Dean retreat into the control tower in an effort to escape the zombies chasing them, only to end up being cornered by zombies because they had nowhere to run, leading directly to PBG and Jon dying. Bonus points to Jon's death, as he survives the initial fall from the tower, only to get killed by a zombie seconds after anyway. In the next episode, Dean coaches Barry on survival tactics, telling Barry to take cover inside a building in the event that they're shot at by someone. Less than two minutes later, they spot a building and run towards it, only to be killed by an unseen sniper seconds before taking cover inside. Lastly, Jared survives being shot at, only to get blasted with a grenade immediately after.
  • Terraria #1: Much like Soah above, McJones dies to a boulder trap after warning people about traps.
  • Minecraft #2: In Part 13, Tim wanders off by himself and goes missing. He's gone for such a long time that the remaining players all head out looking for him. Two episodes later, Tim has finally been found and is less than a minute from returning home... only to be assaulted and killed by a spider and a pair of Creepers.
  • Diablo II: In the finale, when talking about throwing down a portal in case they need to escape from the mobs, McJones says, "Just make sure you don't retreat before us." Later that episode, Paul and Jirard retreat into a portal before McJones, leading to this death.
  • Minecraft #3:
    • Dean is killed by a Creeper mere seconds after asking someone to help protect him from Creepers.
    • When PBG is meeting up with Shane and Jon, Shane warns that a skeleton is behind a tree. While Jon is poisoned from a witch, a skeleton pops up from behind a tree and kills him.
    • In the second episode, PBG comments on how no-one has died to lava since Season 1. When they venture into the Nether much later, not only are PBG and McJones both killed by lava, but it happens while McJones was building them a safehouse no less. Adding to the irony is that, throughout the season, spoilers for key events in the previous seasons are bleeped out. In the same episode, we get the only instance where a spoiler from the previous season is not censored (with PBG recounting how, by blocking off some lava, he wound up screwing himself over when a Zombie Pigman attacked him and he couldn't escape). Said instance is followed by the aforementioned lava death a few minutes later.
  • In both Terraria #1 and Minecraft #3, Jon makes fun of someone's death (Dean and McJones in the former, Dean again in the latter), only to end up being the next casualty.
  • MineZ #1: While stuck inside Sirus after splitting off from the rest of the group, McJones says to PBG, "Just don't take a fall damage 'cause that would be a terrible way to go." Guess how PBG meets his end.
  • Terraria #2:
    • During the camping trip, PBG, wanders around in the mines under the house after an accidental recall and jokingly complains to Jeff about cutting the whole segment out since it was mostly just an uneventful montage of them fishing. Cue PBG stepping onto a trap-switch seconds after and getting crushed by a boulder.
    • At the very beginning of Part 19, Jeff cheerfully remarks, "Let's fall to our deaths." Needless to say, he wasn't so cheerful after Jon did exactly that later in the episode. Jeff's remark and Jon's death were even shown again in the Terraria HC Season #3 Trailer.
    • On the way to the final boss fight, Jeff and McJones are lightly conversing as they descend their Hellevator. McJones gets interrupted by a Sticky Keys prompt, which would have killed him if he hadn't been floating at the time. Jeff notes how much of an Anti-Climax that would have been, and then McJones says that it wouldn't be so bad to die while peacefully floating. Cue Jeff unequipping his umbrella to gain some speed and immediately hitting two dirt blocks and dying instantly. Even better considering his prior "Let's fall to our deaths" joke.
  • Minecraft #5: In their quest to obtain obsidian, Jeff makes an attempt to ascend a waterfall up a ravine to obtain some water so the group can mine more cautiously. After nearly falling off, he decides it's too risky and quits. Not even a minute later, Jared is killed when he gets knocked into an exposed lava pit. Jokingly discussed by Ray and Dean.
    Ray: See, if you went to the top-
    Dean: If you would've went to the top, if you would've been a man, we could have covered him in sweet, sweet danger water!
  • Terraria #3:
    • After the group begins discussing the possibility of digging a hellevator early on to find more treasure, ProtonJon decides to skip out on the main expedition, still unnerved about hellevators from last season. He promptly jumps onto a boulder trap and dies, without anyone there to warn him about it.
    • In a more meta sense, it happens right after the party is assaulted by a ton of enemies in the desert, reducing Jon to 3 health and just barely letting him escape, only to meet his death the episode after. And it happens immediately after PBG was talking about how there's no such thing as jinxing, and in general saying multiple times that they're lucky to have everyone survive. More ironic still in that the trailer for the season hyped up ProtonJon's return as "One Guest's Redemption", and yet he fared worse than in the previous season.
    • A recurring trend throughout the season is Dean freaking out and being quick to point out to people that their health is low, even when they're not actually getting that hurt. His own demise comes about when he stands too close to spikes and nobody notices his health rapidly depleting until it's too late.
  • MineZ #2: McJones, the de facto Smart Guy of the group and the one known for being more cautious, dies when he rushes headlong without caution at a player who is decked out in iron armor and buffed by several potions, who proceeds to slay McJones in self-defense.
  • Minecraft #6: PBG tells the group not to attack the Zombie Pigmen. He himself eventually hits one by accident and gets knocked into the ocean of lava beneath the Nether Portal by an aggressive Baby Zombie Pigman.
  • Starbound: Jeff blows off warnings from Lucahjin and Jesse about digging straight down. Less than thirty seconds later, he falls to his death for entirely different reasons. As an additional bit of irony, it'd figure that SpaceHamster would die from gravity in a game called Starbound.
• Despair Event Horizon:
  • In Minecraft #2, Barry and McJones are noticeably disheartened and frazzled after PBG dies. Barry has it worse still after McJones dies... amongst other things.
  • Every time Dean gets infected in MineZ #1, his tone and energy sound noticeably more depressed, and he only seems to get worse every time he gets rid of it, only to pick it up again.
  • Barry also crosses it in MineZ #1. After BrutalMoose dies, his zombie nearly slays Barry, leaving him bleeding and with only one heart. Instead of trying to back off to recuperate, he breaks down sobbing and brazenly charges forward, immediately dying afterwards.
• Diabolus ex Machina:
  • Happens to McJones in Terraria #2. Despite heavy losses along the way, he and Jeff fend off the Goblin army with complete ease and head to the final showdown, well-equipped and full of confidence. Until Jeff falls victim to an unexpected and easily-avoidable death, leaving McJones to square off against the Wall of Flesh all by himself. Although he still puts up a valiant fight, near the end of the battle the Wall of Flesh glitches and teleports onto him, doing tons of damage, and he ends up dying when the Wall of Flesh has but a measly few hundred HP left. If it hadn't been for the Wall of Flesh glitching, or Jeff's absurd death, the season probably would've been a victory.
  • At the end of Terraria #3, McJones, Lucah, and Luke manage to defeat the Wall of Flesh and succeed in their goal, but when they recall to home base, it's in the midst of a goblin army attack. Since the enemies are newly buffed from hard mode, they barely stand a chance and are all killed. Lampshaded by McJones, whose final words are lamenting what a sucky ending this is.
  • In Minecraft #6, as the party embarks on their first trip to the Nether, PBG gets disconnected from the server as the Nether is generated, resulting in a glitch that spits him out in a random location in the Nether, separating him from the party with no clear way to locate the rest of the party (and vice versa), in addition to not having any way to escape back to the main world on his own. While the party accuses this of being one of Todd's tricks for the season, he leaves an Editor's Note in the episode proper saying that while he wishes he was responsible, it was simply a glitch.
  • In Starbound, PBG dies as a result of a glitch caused by the excessive amounts of lag that he had suffered throughout the season. While riding an elevator downwards, he starts rubberbanding, which causes the game to think that he's repeatedly falling from enough height to cause fall damage. By the time the elevator reaches the bottom, he's suffered enough damage to kill him.
• Difficulty Spike:invoked
  • Responsible for a few of the deaths in Minecraft #3. A number of difficulty-enhancing game changes had been implemented since Minecraft #2 was made, and the majority of the team, if not the entire team, weren't aware of them. The three most noticeable examples being that more powerful mobs (such as Zombies and Skeletons with armour and other enchanted gear) spawn more frequently in areas that players hang out in, Witches now spawn outside of swamps, and lava sources are occasionally hidden within Netherrack sections. This leads directly to the deaths of Jon, PBG, and McJones.
  • Presumably the intent of Terraria #3, since it takes place in the 1.3 update which is harder overall, a far cry from the last time anyone played in Terraria #2, but it ends up being a subversion as everyone dies in run-of-the-mill ways entirely unrelated to the new content in 1.3.
  • Played straight in the ending of Terraria #3, where defeating the Wall of Flesh activates Hardmode, spawning new enemies with much higher health, damage, and speed than anything in pre-Hardmode can compare to. Lucah, Luke, and McJones learn this the hard way when a Goblin army attacks their home as soon as they come back, an event meant for mid-Hardmode at the very least. Because of this change, the three of them drop like flies to the Hardmode Goblin Summoner.
  • Invoked in Starbound: After 10 episodes of things being played relatively straight, once Team 1 and Team J join forces and defeat the first boss, the game is modded to dramatically increase the difficulty in order to give some real stakes, as no one had had any trouble with combat prior.
  • The new Nether proved to be this in Minecraft NB #1, with the majority of the remaining cast in the later episodes of the season very unfamiliar with most of the new, more perilous biome layouts and dangerous mobs. It has proved so daunting that two of the season's cast members, Lucahjin and Shane, perished before any Nether Fortresses were even discovered.
• Downer Ending: Due to the format and concept of the show, this was bound to happen eventually. In fact, a majority of the earlier seasons ended in failure, with every protagonist dead, although their track record slowly began to improve as the series progressed. To wit:
  • Minecraft: Averted. Although everyone but Jon and Barry are dead, the remaining two do end up completing their quest of killing the Ender Dragon.
  • DayZ: Everyone but Jared is dead midway through the third episode, but things seem to be going his way... until he's gunned down by a bandit and gets a grenade tossed his way.
  • Terraria: SpaceHamster and PBG take on the Eye of Cthulhu by themselves, and both fall in battle despite getting this close to killing it.
  • Minecraft #2: Barry descends into madness as he fails to find more Wither Skulls, and ultimately dies alone in the Nether.
  • Mount & Blade: Everyone dies in both episodes. Though given that they were endurance rounds to see how long they could last, rather than having a concrete goal to aim for like in the other seasons, a downer ending was inevitable.
  • Diablo II: Averted. Paul and Jirard kill Diablo and complete their quest, earning the gang a victory for the first time in three seasons.
  • Minecraft #3: Shane is killed by a Wither Skeleton that snuck up behind him as he was putting out a couple fires. Then, as Smooth is trying to kill a Blaze, he too is snuck up on and killed by the exact same skeleton (which could be seen wearing Shane's armour).
  • MineZ #1: The majority of the party members die out slowly on the expedition to the Giant's Camp. The remaining three - Jeff, Barry, and Ian - attempt to fight the Giant by themselves and are slaughtered. Meanwhile, across the sea, PBG makes his way to Greyvale, where he is killed by Falling Damage.
  • Terraria #2: Jeff and McJones descend to fight the Wall of Flesh, only for Jeff to suddenly hit the ground too hard and die. McJones takes on the Wall of Flesh himself and comes within seconds of killing it before he, too, falls.
  • Minecraft #4: Averted. Despite losing Barry and Caddy early on, the rest of the group successfully manages to infiltrate the underwater temple, slay the Elder Guardians, and obtain the treasure. This series actually marks a new record for the most Hardcore survivors at the end of a series, not to mention being the first series where mainstays PBG, McJones, and Dean (as well as recent new main Jeff) all survive to the end.
  • Minecraft #5: With everyone else dead, Jeff and his band of wolves embark to fight the Ender Dragon solo. Despite an admirable effort, he too ends up being killed while attempting to destroy a caged End Crystal.
  • Terraria #3: Double subverted: Lucah Jin, McJones, and Yungtown all survive and defeat the Wall of Flesh (and rather easily at that), thus accomplishing the goal. However, after the post-fight celebration, the video rewinds to reveal that the Hardmode goblin army spawned in right after the Wall of Flesh fight, killing all three.
  • MineZ #2: The remaining survivors make it to the floating islands and must platform over a bottomless abyss... only for Barry to miss the first jump and die, and PBG getting knocked into the abyss by a random zombie. Jared, Ian, and Jeff make it through to the other side, only to be ambushed by swarms of zombies and pigmen. Jared watches as Jeff and Ian get killed by zombies, and tries to run away, only to get hit at the edge of the island and fall into the abyss.
  • Minecraft #6: Averted. Despite losing Jared during the final fight, Chad, Jeff and Dean manage to finally defeat the Wither and survive, completing their goal and making up for their previous attempts in season 2 and 3.
  • Starbound: Averted. Although both Lucahjin and Yungtown die in the final dungeon, Jared, Jirard and Jesse defeat Asra Nox and survive, marking the first time two Hardcores have been won in a row.
  • Minecraft #7: Similarly to season 5, Jeff must travel to the End alone, no wolves this time as his one wolf previously fell to a Creeper. He once again tries his hardest, but when trying to use ladders to climb up to a caged End Crystal, the Dragon knocks him off as he tries to hastily climb down, sending him flying in an admittedly humorous way to his death. However, we are then reminded of Waffle, Yungtown's wolf who is now all alone in the empty house where the team once was.
  • Minecraft NB #1: Reminiscent of season 3, with half the party gone, Austin, Jon and Jirard finally manage to locate a Nether Fortress. While exploring the outer limits, Austin is double-teamed by a Wither Skeleton and a Blaze, and falls to his death in a frenzied panic. Demoralized, Jon and Jirard are dispatched shortly afterwards by Wither Skeletons while exploring the fortress further.
• Dropped a Bridge on Him: Happens frequently — at least once every season.
  • Minecraft #1: Both The Completionist and Soah die very early on. The former mysteriously left his computer and didn't return for the rest of the playthrough and was thus "killed" by AFK, while the latter struck lava and burned to death offscreen. Much later, McJones dies when the Enderdragon pushes him into the abyss seconds after entering The End. The anti-climatic nature of Soah's death is even lampshaded.
    Jon: He died so un-epically.
    PBG: Nobody even gets to see how he died.
    Jon: *laughs* I know. He just burned to death somewhere.
  • DayZ: Pretty much every death could count. Especially McJones, who is slaughtered in the first couple minutes, and Jon is the only person to even say anything about it.
  • Terraria #1: Midway through, Dean and McJones are suddenly and unceremoniously squashed by a boulder while mining underground, to which Jon laughs hysterically. A couple episodes later, Jon himself suffers a very anti-climatic death at the hands of a lone Demon Eye. It's especially noteworthy since, in a series where death is normally treated as such a big deal, PBG and Jeff don't seem all that fazed by Jon's demise, and PBG even shows outright relief at not having to "babysit" Jon anymore. Paul could also count, as he dies offscreen less than thirty seconds into the episode, he's somewhat overshadowed by Barry's passing in the episode before, and we don't even see the death message that indicates what killed him.
  • Minecraft #2: NintendoCapriSun has a ridiculous death as his controls lock up at the worst possible moment, leaving him helpless as a spider knocks him into a pond and two Creepers blow up on him, all within the first couple minutes of the episode. What really sells it is his delivery, as he's clearly panicking yet sounds strangely subdued about it.
  • Diablo II: After having just beaten the second act, Dean stumbles into a stream of fire from a Flayer Shaman and dies instantly, all while everyone else was still cooling off from the previous boss fight.
  • Minecraft #3: Dean not only gets abruptly blown up by a Creeper early in, but it occurs offscreen too. Much later, after McJones and PBG's dramatic deaths, Shane and Smooth are rather unceremoniously disposed of in the next episode.
  • MineZ #1: Dean gets the biggest bridge drop of all time in this season. Not only did he die offscreen, but since he wasn't anywhere near the others when it happened, there wasn't even a death message. Instead, on Episode 13, the camera zooms in on the barren Pirate Ship, Chirping Crickets and all, and a stoic SpaceHamster simply says "Dean died." SpaceHamster left a comment confirming that Dean died to a zombie on the pirate ship, but his footage got corrupted, hence why it wasn't shown. Later, while not as bad as Dean's, PBG meets a less-than-glamorous end too. We get five episodes of him heroically struggling against the odds for survival and having to watch his own brother die. It had the potential to be the greatest underdog story ever, but all that is ruined when he gets chased off a ledge by a zombie and falls to his death.
  • Terraria #2: In a halfway literal sense, PBG is crushed by a boulder underground whilst talking about cutting the segment out since it was mostly Jeff fishing. Later on, Jon suddenly dies offscreen from fall damage when the group gets sidetracked while building a Hellevator. In the last episode, while descending the Hellevator on the way to the final showdown, Jeff abruptly hits a small ledge and dies instantly from the impact.
  • Minecraft #5: Happens near literally; as ProJared tries to mine some iron, a spider suddenly drops in from an overhead cave and knocks him into lava. Near the end of the season, out of nowhere, PBG finds himself on the receiving end of a One-Hit Kill by a Creeper, despite being very well armoured.
  • Terraria #3: After 10 fatality-free episodes, the longest streak in any Hardcore season up to that point (tied with MineZ #1), ProtonJon is unexpectedly slain by a boulder trap underground. Jeff gets the ultimate bridge-drop in Episode 15 when he tests out a grappling hook and falls to his death.
  • Minecraft #6: Chad and PBG are fighting a zombie when McJones comes in and falls into lava. In Episode 2. Later on, after the group successfully finds the Totem of Undying, Dodger is blown up by a Creeper right outside their house. Fortunately, she got better... until Episode 14, where she walks off the Nether Portal and into the sea of lava below.
  • Starbound:
    • After a whopping 15 episodes without a death (the longest streak in the show's history), during a seemingly harmless battle against a flying monster, Jeff accidentally triggers the teleportation ability of his new sword, sending him falling to his death.
    • Just three episodes later, Barry dies in nearly the same scenario, the only difference being the lack of any enemies.
    • Only four episodes after Barry's death, PBG dies in a similar fashion to Barry, falling to his death (Though for reasons beyond his control) with no enemies around.
    • Four episodes after that, Lucahjin dies offscreen when the entrance to the Grand Pagoda Library opens beneath her, sending her plummeting down.
  • Minecraft #7: In the penultimate episode, PBG and Jeff are traversing through a dungeon connected to a crevice and PBG walks through a doorway without any ground on the other side of it. He falls into water while missing lava by at least one or two blocks, but as he collects himself while exploring the ravine, a creeper gets set off from above him and falls right next to him the moment it explodes.
• Dude, Not Funny!: In Minecraft #3 Episode 7, Jared calls "Too soon" when PBG makes a remark about Dean's death.
• Dug Too Deep: In Minecraft #7, Jeff and Barry dug into a cave, unleashing a horde of zombies upon themselves and the people in the house. Jeff made it out alive, but Barry and Jared got surrounded and killed.
• Dwindling Party: Considering the primary gimmick of the series is that if you die, you stay dead, this is only to be expected. A more unique case occurs in MineZ #1, where, despite the infected party members surviving their conditions, the main group is forced to leave them behind anyways for fear of having their progress slowed, rendering them effectively dead for the rest of the season despite still being very much alive.
• Enfant Terrible: Dean habitually refers to all baby zombies and pigmen as "Wiggly Squigglies". We get an especially nasty case of this in Minecraft #4, where a baby pigman wielding a sword kills Barry.
• Epic Fail:
  • In Episode 22 of Minecraft #5. Jeff, being the Sole Survivor and not wanting to look up information about what he need to do, forgoes the potion making process. By doing so, he rendered the deaths of Ray, McJones, and Dean ultimately pointless, since they all died from looking for Nether Wart for the potions. Todd's caption lampshades it, complete with a clip of PBG facepalming and shaking his head.
    Let's take a moment of facepalm for the useless Nether Wart.
  • In Terraria #3, Jeff manages to kill himself within the safety of the team's home base, as he falls to his death while testing out a grappling hook on various structures that the team had made.
    From the video comments: "Jeff, that death was worse than your one in Terraria 2 and that's saying something."
• Evil Laugh: In Minecraft #3, Jon laughs maniacally as the house burns down.
• Failed a Spot Check:
  • In Episode 8 of Diablo II, PBG is poisoned during the fight with Coldworm the Burrower and doesn't notice. He begins to rapidly lose most of his health from the poison, and he still doesn't notice. It isn't until the group returns to town and Jirard points it out that it finally dawns on him.
    Jirard: We're making g- PBG, what happened to you, man? You almost died.
    PBG: I did? ... Holy crap!
    McJones: Look at your health.
    PBG: Holy crap!
    McJones: *laughs* You didn't even know?
    PBG: I - well the fight was over.
  • PBG fails another spot check in Episode 5 of Minecraft #3. From his perspective, there's the sounds of wood burning and a brief shot of flames on the house. PBG even acknowledges the burning wood as he starts to ask what the noise is, but still doesn't clue in, not until Jared yells out that the house is on fire.
  • In Minecraft #5, Ray misses how much health he has before charging into battle against a Wither skeleton. Unlike PBG's missed spot checks, it proves to be fatal, as he dies from withering away after getting smacked down to one heart.
  • This becomes a recurring problem in Terraria #3:
    • In Episode 7, Lucahjin nearly suffocates to death under slush without realizing it. Soon after, McJones nearly suffers the same fate.
    • In Episode 11, Jon mines out a tunnel to reach a water-filled cavern and doesn't see the trap button next to the water, despite the button being visible for over half a minute as he slowly digs toward it. He is then squished by a boulder. He discusses this in the Post-Show Podcast: Because of his relative unfamiliarity with Terraria, he didn't think traps could spawn in watery areas, hence he wasn't on the lookout for one before he died.
    • In Episode 18, Austin fails to notice a single block of meteorite next to the iron he's mining. He continually jumps up and down and slams his head into the meteorite, roasting himself, all the while oblivious to his dissipating health. As such, he soon finds himself incinerated.
    • In both Episodes 21 and 22, everyone loses a bunch of health to the spike traps littered around the dungeon. Towards the end of their journey, Dean suffers a similar fate as PBG when he backs up into a set of spikes, which act much like the meteorite blocks and make short work of him.
    • In Episode 23, a narrowly-avoided death when Yungtown mines away at a house. He stands just a tad too deep in the water as he does so and comes within seconds of drowning, before Lucahjin notices and brings it to his attention.
  • Starbound HC:
    • In Episode 10, after a successful victory against the Erchius Horror, PBG fails to activate the drill to allow progression of the game. As a result, Team 1 has to refight the Horror and its accompanying dungeon again.
    • In the last few episodes of the season, Yungtown accidentally equips his armor in the vanity slots in his inventory. This comes back to bite him in the finale when he is slain during the final fight.
  • Minecraft #7:
    • This seems to be the reason Ray doesn't block off the hole in the floor that eventually drops him to his death. As the camera shows his perspective in the moments leading up to his death, it's shown that the hole was visible when Ray first entered the tunnel, but Ray makes no comment about the hole and his movements as he enters and leaves the tunnel suggest that he didn't see it at all. Like McJones's death in Minecraft #6, the hole is outside of Ray's field-of-view when he actually falls into it due to the hole being positioned underneath a ledge.
    • While traversing a dungeon split in half by a crevice, PBG walks out a door without checking what's on the other side, leading to him falling since there's no ground. He barely misses a pit of lava and manages to land in water.
• Failed Attempt at Drama: In Minecraft #6, Episode 1, Todd tries to play the part of an enigmatic overseer while explaining the revival totem to Jared, but he's repeatedly interrupted by zombie attacks.
• Fake Kill Scare: The text chat, which displays a message when a player dies, has been known to shock participants in some series, particularly Minecraft and Terraria seasons. Some notable examples:
  • Minecraft #4, Episode 5: Everyone is shocked when a message pops up saying Barry finally got the 'Getting Wood' achievement.
  • Terraria #3, Episode 1: The group is spooked in the very first episode when a message shows up stating that ProtonJon killed the 50th green slime. Jon jokes about it afterward:
    ProtonJon: Look, I'm not that bad at the game, guys! Come on, now!
  • Terraria #3, Episode 8: Team Blood freaks out from a REAL death message for the Stylist NPC that McJones, Lucahjin and Dean failed to save from the spider den, who respawns anyway.
  • Terraria #3, Episode 18: While the group is mining the meteorite, everyone once again gets spooked by the "50th kill" message, this time from Lucahjin killing the Meteor Heads. They cool off from it a little too quickly, as PBG dies to the meteorite not a minute later.
  • Starbound, Episode 15: Inverted. In the teaser for Episode 16, the Hunting Group notices that someone is dead, but they don't know who it is, and it takes them quite a long time to even register that Jeff did die.
• Falling Damage:
  • McJones in Minecraft #1 is knocked off the platform by the Ender Dragon and plummets into the abyss below.
  • This ends up being the cause of PBG's deaths in DayZ and in both seasons of MineZ.
  • Jared in Minecraft #3 is assaulted by a Creeper and brought down to one heart. He would've survived, if not for the fact that the explosion also catapulted him into the air, causing him to die the moment he hit ground again.
  • Also ends up being a recurring problem in Terraria #2, causing the deaths of Satch, ProtonJon and SpaceHamster and a nearly-fatal accident early on when Dean accidentally jumps into a 2 block-wide pit PBG dug.
  • Jeff in Terraria #3, as a result of playing with a grappling hook.
  • Jeff and Barry in Starbound, both due to accidentally using a movement accessory while above a large pit. Later, while on an elevator, Austin lags so much that he falls off the elevator and onto it again several times without any chance to heal the damage. Later still, Lucahjin dies when a gate in the floor drops out from under her, causing her to plummet down an elevator shaft to her demise.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief: Mostly applies to the final Power Trios in Terraria #2, with Jeff as the fighter, McJones as the mage, and Jon as the thief, and Terraria #3, with Lucah as the fighter, Luke as the mage, and McJones as the thief.
• Filler: In Minecraft #6, the entire Totem of Resurrection subplot ultimately becomes this, though it was certainly unintended. While the episodes about it are quite tense and interesting, it ends up being effectively pointless in regards to the completion of the group's Wither-slaying goal; the totem is used to revive Dodger, whose death was a result of the search for the totem in the first place, and she then dies for real a few episodes later with very little impacted by her return.
• Final Boss: Every Hardcore season outside of DayZ and MineZ #2 has featured the end goal of killing a powerful monster. Downplayed with Minecraft #5; although the end goal is to acquire an Elytra, the Ender Dragon has to be defeated first.
• Foreshadowing: An eerily common theme in an unscripted series. As in, it happens enough to become a Running Gag in-universe, and have its own page for examples.
• From Bad to Worse:
  • PBG, one of the three remaining players, dies in the latter half of Episode 19 in Minecraft #2. Things slowly calm down for a little while after. Then McJones dies too, and Barry narrowly avoids death.
  • In MineZ, after the guys finally meet up and cure Dean of his disease, they decide to head out to Sirus. When they get there, not only does Dean get infected again, but PBG and McJones end up infected as well!
  • Starting with Barry's death in Minecraft #5, things slowly get worse. The deaths begin ramping up in frequency. It all culminates in Episode 15 where, after the deaths of McJones and Ray, the party is reduced to two members.
  • The group entering the Nether in Minecraft #5 also applies. It starts off okay enough, just being trapped inside a Netherrack wall. But what follows is Pigman Zombies suddenly being aggro'd against the group, mining into lava from digging into the wall, being stuck in a small makeshift hut with HORDES of Pigmen surrounding it, being bombarded left and right by Blazemen, and Wither Skeletons securing kills on the remaining party members.
• The "Fun" in "Funeral":
  • In Terraria #2, the funeral Jeff and McJones hold for Jon becomes this when it's gate-crashed by some slimes. Jeff ends up giving the 21 Guns salute with a machine gun.
    McJones: I miss him! ... Hang on, we've got some wedd - or - funeral crashers here.
  • In Terraria #3, the funeral the gang holds for Jon and Jeff is interrupted and ends when PBG accidentally blows Jeff's grave up.
• Gang Up on the Human:
  • This is how NintendoCapriSun dies in Minecraft #2 - Part 15, as he's swarmed by a spider and two Creepers. He might have made it out alive, but his controls seemed to have stopped responding, leaving him helpless against the onslaught.
  • Also how Jared dies in Minecraft #3 - Part 9. He's fighting two Creepers at once, with three spiders also coming at him. He causes one of the Creepers to explode, killing one spider but throwing the other Creeper and the other two spiders that were chasing him, straight at him. The second Creeper begins to explode, but he manages to kill it just in time. He backs up from the two remaining spiders, only to run into another Creeper, which blows up and throws him into the air, killing him the moment he hits the ground. To recap: That's three Creepers and three spiders, all ganging up on poor Jared. And he still almost survived.
  • In Minecraft NB #1, PBG dies this way. After being double-teamed by a Wither Skeleton and a Blaze, PBG panics, stumbles off the side of the Nether fortress and plummets to his death.
• Go-Karting with Bowser: In Minecraft #3, completely by coincidence, Luigi and Waluigi are on the same team, as well as Ragna and Hazama.
• Gone Horribly Wrong:
  • The plan in Episode 19 of Minecraft #2 to attack the Zombie Pigmen results in two-thirds of the remaining team to die, leaving only Barry, who lucked out thanks to a convenient crash.
  • Since MineZ is played on a public server, various members of the team decide they want to kill any other player they come across. They finally get to try their luck in MineZ #2, with six people teaming up to kill one better-equipped player who happened to log in a short distance from the town they were exploring. It proves to be a costly mistake, with the player living to fight another day, after killing McJones in self-defense.
• Heroic Sacrifice:
  • In Minecraft #2, Jared does this to save a lagged-out PBG.
  • He does it again in Minecraft #6 when he holds out and keeps the Wither aggroed on him long enough for the rest of the group to deal the killing blow before being killed from behind by zombies.
• History Repeats:
  • Many, many examples, to the point of being as copious as the series' foreshadowing. Has its own page.
  • A recurring (but entirely coincidental) plot point in the latter half of Minecraft #7 is that the order of that season's deaths (up to and including PBG's own in the penultimate episode) is nearly identical^note The only difference is due to McJones having left the show in the interim years; Yungtown, who replaced him, died in the same "spot" that McJones did) to that of Minecraft #5, something that PBG and Jeff lampshade heavily when they realize it.
• Hope Spot:
  • In Minecraft #5, after only PBG and Jeff make it out of the Nether alive in Minecraft #5, things start looking up for the duo... for about four episodes, before PBG is unceremoniously killed by a Creeper, leaving Jeff to complete the rest of that season's challenges alone.
  • Also in Minecraft #5, Jeff succeeds in obtaining the remaining materials against all odds, and makes it all the way to the Ender Dragon. For a while, he seems to be making good progress against the dragon... before he abruptly gets pinned in an enclosed space by the dragon's magic, killing him.
  • In Minecraft #7, after losing Dean, Yungtown, and Ray in a short period of time, PBG and Jeff yet again make considerable progress and even successfully track down the End Portal. Shortly after they find the Portal, however, PBG is once again killed instantly by a sudden Creeper ambush, leaving Jeff to find the remaining Ender Pearls and slay the Ender Dragon by himself.
  • In Minecraft NB #1, Austin, Jon and Jirard finally manage to locate a Nether Fortress after losing Lucahjin and Shane and toiling away digging through Netherrack for hours, only to perish to Blazes and Wither Skeletons shortly after.
• I Let Gwen Stacy Die:
  • McJones blames himself for NCS's death in Minecraft #2. He also blames himself for Dean's death in Minecraft #3.
  • Luke has a similar reaction when Jeff gets himself killed in Terraria #3.
  • Jared expresses similar sentiments in Minecraft #6 when he blames himself for not walling off the backside of the Nether portal to prevent PBG and Dodger's deaths.
• I Will Only Slow You Down: PBG, McJones, and Dean all come to this conclusion during MineZ after each of them become infected and nobody can find even one antidote to cure any of them. The group begrudgingly leaves them behind, considering them dead.
• Identity Impersonator: Discussed in DayZ, where after Ross tells Jared of his disastrous first time with the game (a random Griefer shot him in the back of the head, only to recognize his comrade JonTron and let him live), they talk about changing their respective usernames to "Egoraptor" and "JamesNintendoNerd".
• I'm Melting!: As of Minecraft #6, lava is the most lethal killer in all Minecraft-related seasons, notably responsible for the deaths of Soah in Minecraft #1, PBG and McJones in Minecraft #3, Jared and Dean in Minecraft #5, and McJones, Dodger (#2) and PBG in Minecraft #6.
• Impossible Item Drop: Discussed in Diablo II.
  PBG: That Ghoul Lord only had twenty-one gold!
  Dean: What does a Ghoul Lord need gold for?
  Paul: For his ghoul estates? Probably!
• Instant-Win Condition: The team "wins" any given season when they accomplish the goal that they set at the beginning of the season (usually killing a lategame or endgame boss). Any death that happens after the fact doesn't technically "count", for what little it matters. This has resulted in the survivors of a victorious season wrapping up the show with a Duel to the Death just for the fun of it (Minecraft #1 and #4), as well as Terraria #3 counting as a win despite the survivors getting torn apart by the Hardmode Goblin Army after killing the Wall of Flesh.
• It Makes Sense in Context: Most of the random lines yelled during the opening theme tend to make sense, once you learn when they are actually said. In Minecraft #3, McJones' "You trapped me in!" sounds lighthearted, but turns out to be anything but when Shane accidentally traps him into a room filling with lava and leading to his death.
• It Makes Just As Much Sense In Context:
  • Conversely, some lines still don't make much sense when they actually occur, like Ian's "Team 1 likes touching themselves" as the collective team is 'showering' in some rain.
  • All the Minecraft skins make very little sense in context to the adventure. One of the more absurd skins was Ian's from MineZ #2, which was literally just a walking hot dog. PBG, inspired by Ian's odd skin choice, decides to make his skin in Minecraft #6 a, um, random assortment of fast food items, cobbled together into some humanoid amalgamation.
• Killed Off for Real: The driving force of the Hardcore series; when a player dies, they're dead for the rest of the season. Double Subverted with Minecraft #6, where the party is given a one-time ability to resurrect a dead party member, who happens to die a second (and final) time later in the season.
• Killed Offscreen:
  • Happens occasionally. More frequent in the earlier seasons on account of having less people recording. Specifically, Soah in Minecraft #1; Jon in DayZ; Paul in Terraria #1; McJones in the first round of Mount & Blade Episode 2, Dean in the second round, and both Dean and McJones in the third; Dean and McJones in Minecraft #3; Jared, Dean, and McJones in MineZ; Satch, Dean, and Jon in Terraria #2; and Lucajin in Starbound; all of which were not caught on video.
  • Almost all the group's chickens die offscreen too in Minecraft #3 Episode 10.
  • Happens to several of Jeff's dogs in Minecraft #5, complete with sad death messages.
    Wolf tried to swim in lava
    Wolf went up in flames
    Wolf tried to swim in lava
    Wolf tried to swim in lava
    Wolf tried to swim in lava
    Wolf burned to death
    Wolf was slain by Ender Dragon
    Wolf was killed by Ender Dragon using magic
• Last Stand:
  • Some of the Hardcore seasons have ended this way, with PBG and SpaceHamster defending against the Eye of Cthulhu in Terraria #1, Ian and Barry facing off against the Giant in MineZ, McJones confronting the Wall of Flesh in Terraria #2, and SpaceHamster squaring off against the Ender Dragon in Minecraft #5.
  • Terraria #3 is unique in that the group's last stand takes place directly after the completion of their goal, against the goblin army (newly turned Hardmode) waiting for them on the surface.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: Referenced within the show.
  • In Minecraft #3, there's a few times when someone discusses something significant from a previous season, but the audio is bleeped out so as to avoid spoiling it for anyone who hasn't seen the previous seasons. The trailer for Terraria #3 warns about spoilers for Terraria #2, before showing Jon's death.
  • In the first episode of Terraria #3, however, a disclaimer appears, stating that spoilers from previous seasons will no longer be avoided. Throughout the rest of the season, many of the deaths from earlier seasons are shown and casually discussed by the players.
• Leeroy Jenkins:
  • Throughout Minecraft #1, PBG behaves rather boldly, but this especially hits home when he spends time hunting for Endermen in a desert. This eventually gets him killed. Despite this, he still does this from time to time in later seasons, with varying results.
  • In Minecraft #5:
    • Averted with Barry's death. Though it may seem like he rushed headlong into the web-strewn room with a Cave Spider spawner in it only to get caught and die, he was actually shoved in from behind by a Cave Spider that snuck up behind him.
    • A major cause of Ray's death. Less than a minute after McJones dies, Ray rushes forth into combat without realizing he's at half health, gets brought down to one heart by a Wither skeleton, and withers away.
  • In MineZ #2, Dean is repeatedly called out by his team for this. It ultimately costs him his life when he charges into a building by himself despite already being heavily injured, and gets himself killed by a zombie before the others can catch up.
  • Also in MineZ #2, McJones brazenly attacks a player despite the player not wanting to fight. This proves to be fatal as the player is able to fight him off and kill him.
• Left for Dead: Episode 10 of MineZ #1, Dean is left behind when he is unable to descend the stairs of the ship in time. To seal the nail in the coffin, as the rest of the group leave, they look back upon the S.S. Dean to see the ship being slowly overrun by zombies.
• Lethally Stupid:
  • In Minecraft and Terraria, the group often decides that the best time to go out and mine is in the middle of the night, and they continue to fight monsters, again at night. This usually has bad consequences.
  • In Minecraft #3, Jon decides to decorate the (wooden) house... with a flowing stream of lava. In the next episode, the house almost burns down as a result.
• Let's Split Up, Gang!:
  • In MineZ, the group starts out as two Teams (Team 1 and Team B), complete with separate calls, and have to regroup after finding each other from across the map. They do this and become one big group in Episode 4. In Episode 9, they split up again so that the others can find medicine for McJones and PBG. After McJones's death, the second team becomes "Team PBG".
  • This also occurred in Minecraft #5 whenever two major tasks needed to be done, such as mining or searching for Nether Wart. Once the task was completed or when someone died, they rejoined the calls.
  • Done again in Terraria #3, with an edited-in Call-Back to Team 1 and Team B from MineZ.
• Lighter and Softer:
  • After the unexpected gloominess of MineZ #1 and Terraria #2, as well as the further heightened melancholy that was to come once Todd would take the reins of editor, Minecraft #4 had a much more optimistic and upbeat tone than any other season after Minecraft #3. The season had a cozy, secure Ocean Punk setting that would neutralize much of the early danger above ground, a constant stream of energetic chatter to fill the silence (more often than not about a humorous, unrelated topic entirely), a total of two deaths in the Nether that the group was able to push on from and not let demoralize them, and the completion of the season's objective without a single casualty, culminating in an entirely successful ending with every main cast member (sans Barry) intact and a well-spirited battle royale to end it off, making it the most lighthearted post-PBG-edited season by a long shot, resonating with the original, swashbuckling tone of Minecraft #1.
  • MineZ #2 was comparatively more pleasant than MineZ #1, the dominating presence of infection from the latter being nonexistent in the former^note For a short period of time, zombies would no longer have a chance to infect on hit, and MineZ #2 was recorded during this time, thus allowing the group to simply bask in the sights of MineZ's vast and expansive world, showcasing beautiful environments that had to be skipped over in MineZ #1 in favor of obtaining antidotes.
• Loads and Loads of Loading:
  • An ongoing problem throughout Minecraft #2, leading to three deaths! Kyrak Jellyman had consistent lag problems throughout the first several episodes, to the point that he could barely play. Eventually, the rest of the group decided to "sacrifice" him to put him out of his misery. Later, PBG was lagging and couldn't move properly while being chased by a creeper. ProJared rushed in to save him, but missed his strike, causing the creeper to blow up and kill him instead. Later still, NintendoCapriSun's controls stopped responding as he was being swarmed by monsters, ending in his demise.
  • Ironically, Barry was later saved by a lag-out. His computer crashed when he and McJones were being attacked in the Nether, sparing him from the danger.
  • In Terraria #2, during many of the boss fights, ProtonJon misclicks outside the game window, losing control and taking major damage as a result. Thankfully, it doesn't get him killed.
  • In Terraria #3, Lucahjin ended up misclicking outside the game window while fighting the Eye of Cthulhu, losing control for a brief moment. Against the Brain of Cthulhu and Skeletron, Dean does the same thing. Luckily, it wasn't fatal for either of them.
  • Also a problem in Starbound, especially for PBG, leading to several near-death experiences, and ultimately PBG's death.
• Man on Fire:
  • While in the Nether in Minecraft #3, McJones and PBG dig into the side of a netherrack wall, only to get burned by a surprise pocket of lava. While they do survive the initial contact with the lava, they both burn to death shortly afterwards due to having no way to put the fire out. Later on, both Shane and Smooth suffer from afterburn caused by Blazes before dying to Wither Skeletons.
  • In Minecraft #5, McJones quickly burns to death after getting shot by a Blaze.
  • In Terraria #3, PBG burns to death after bashing his head on a single block of meteorite multiple times.
• Memetic Mutation: In-universe with "Who needs a map?!", which is spoken at least once in all of the first five seasons of Minecraft as well as MineZ #2.
• Mercy Kill:
  • In Minecraft #2, PBG kills Kyrak because of his bad internet connection. To be specific, he kept logging out because of how bad his connection was, and it got to the point that the server (for a while) refused to let him back on.
  • In MineZ, McJones dies a very sudden death from a zombie while searching Bazel for medicine, leaving PBG all alone. After traversing the abandoned town throughout the episode, he eventually comes face to face with his brother's zombie, and kills it as a final testament to McJones.
    PBG: McJones... I'm sorry...
• Mood Whiplash:
  • In Episode 2 of Minecraft #1, while PBG, Dean, and McJones are stuck out in the middle of nowhere, digging a cave to survive the night, Jon and Barry are relaxing back at base and using the chat:
    <TheOnionKing> (JonTron) you want porkchops barry?
    <razzbarry> nah I'm good
    <TheOnionKing> barry wanna eat some cotton candy
    <razzbarry> sure!
    razzbarry is eating cotton candy
    <razzbarry> this is delicious
    <TheOnionKing> good nigth barry
    <TheOnionKing> i love you
    <razzbarry> <3
    Soah1086 burned to death
  • In Episode 6 of Diablo II, Act II begins on a jovial enough note. Then Barry dies less than a minute in.
  • In Episode 10 of Diablo II, just like with the aforementioned Barry, Dean dies out of nowhere in the beginning of Act III.
    Paul: One second we're just singing the Muppet Babies theme, and the next second, Dean's dead...
  • It happens to Dean again in Minecraft #3. In fact, it serves as a double Mood Whiplash, as afterwards we see two people react to his death without actually seeing it, and with quiet piano music mourning his death. Then it cuts back to the present as Jon calls out, "Thank God, can we be honest?"
  • MineZ, Episode 4: The groups re-unite, but the mood doesn't last long, as Dean instantly begins to lose health from the infection.
    Jared: It's them! It's them!
    Dean: Yep, I'm dead! I'M DEAD!
  • MineZ, Episode 11: Jeff, Ian, Barry, and Jared reach Camp Kharj and look around for loot until morning. Suddenly, Jared runs into a pig zombie offscreen and dies almost instantaneously.
  • MineZ, Episode 14: PBG's tearful goodbye to his brother's zombie form before giving it a Mercy Kill is extremely sad, but the mood is somewhat ruined when McJones's zombie refuses to stand still and PBG gets too dizzy to aim, interrupting his dramatic speech.
  • Terraria #2, Episode 8: Having defeated the first boss and arriving at The Corruption, the group are joking about fanart when Satch falls down a chasm to his death.
  • Terraria #3, Episode 15: Begins with Todd the editor narrating the events that occurred during the events of the fishing, complete with nice and mellow music. The last event to occur is Jeff's death.
  • Terraria #3, Episode 24: The team triumphs over the Wall of Flesh, and return home to enjoy their victory. But it turns out to be a fakeout ending, as the real events show that after their victory, they all get mercilessly slaughtered by the Goblin Army that attacks them when they return.
  • Minecraft #6, Episode 17: An interesting whiplash, as Jared delivers his Final Speech literally seconds before the Wither is slain. Dean somberly remembers Jared's sacrifice before Chad starts celebrating the victory. Even Jeff seems to alternate between feeling great about the win and awful about Jared's death.
  • Starbound, Episode 18: Everything's all fun and games, and everyone's just chatting casually... and then Barry falls off a cliff to his death. It's especially notable when contrasted with Jeff's death earlier in the series; the latter caused an Oh, Crap! reaction, while the former wasn't even noticed at first.
  • Starbound, Episode 22: Immediately following PBG's sudden death by lag-induced fall damage and the party being absolutely stunned, Jirard decides to improve the mood by breaking out his trumpet.
• Musical Spoiler:
  • Sort-of. The background music in "To The Nether!"^note Minecraft #3, Episode 11 noticeably goes silent seconds before McJones exposes the lava flow that winds up killing himself and PBG.
  • Also apparent in Terraria #3: The background music becomes slightly ominous and cuts out abruptly just before ProtonJon activates the boulder trap that kills him.
• My Friends... and Zoidberg: Jesse fills this role in Starbound, as both the Hunting and Mining group noticed that Jesse was by himself on the group chat, and it was implied that the Mining group didn't make the effort to inform him that he was alone. The Hunting group at least had one person pop on by to tell him that he was by himself.
• Mythology Gag: In Episode 17 of Minecraft #5, the PB & Jeff intro sequence is used before the traditional Hardcore opening, since PBG and SpaceHamster were the last ones alive at that point.
• Never Trust a Title: In Minecraft #3, specifically to avoid having a Spoiler Title: The final episode is titled "We Can Do This!", and yet ends with both Shane and Smooth dying and the Wither quest ending in failure.
• New Meat:
  • Dean in the first few Minecraft seasons. In contrast to DayZ Hardcore, where he's one of the most competent of the team, Dean had never played the game before in Minecraft #1 and was in need of constant help from the others. In fact, in the first MineZ Hardcore, Dean is still asking about game mechanics, even after three seasons of Minecraft and when the others are out desperately searching for medicine to cure PBG and McJones.
    Dean: Is there any way to do auto-run in this game?
  • Dean finally gets over this in Minecraft #4, when Caddy falls into this role more than he does.
    Dean: Hey, I'm not the newest person!
  • Joked about towards Jon in Terraria #2. Jon had never played the game before, yet he ended up playing pretty well, to the point where he ended up outlasting half the team, becoming one of the final three surviving members and helping the group kill three bosses. The guys consistently joked about predicting that he would end up being the last one alive and doing a Hardcore Let's Play of the game by himself. Unfortunately, this wasn't the case; he later died offscreen by falling too far down into a cave.
  • Lucah, and Luke to a lesser extent, in Terraria #3, a point of commonality that ended up making them both great friends with Dean.
• Non-Indicative Name: The second base in Minecraft #1, a structure made entirely of cobblestone, is referred to as "The Tent".
• Not the Fall That Kills You…:
  • Jared's death in Episode 9 of Minecraft #3. See Gang Up on the Human.
  • Also how PBG dies in MineZ. In his defense, he did panic from an incoming zombie that might well have killed him anyway...
  • And also how Satch, ProtonJon, and SpaceHamster die in Terraria #2 (and Jeff again in Terraria #3).
  • And also how Jeff yet again, Barry, PBG, and Lucahjin die in Starbound.
  • PBG once again dies this way in Minecraft NB #1, with a bit of a Gang Up on the Human element to it, similar to Jared's death in Minecraft #3 above.
• Ocean Punk: Downplayed. The Minecraft environment and aesthetics are not vastly different from previous seasons, but this is overall the major theme of Minecraft #4. The world gen drops everyone right onto a group of islands in the middle of the ocean, an extremely uncommon occurrence for Minecraft standards, and the biome sticks for the entire season, uniquely forcing them to take up a different, more scavenger-heavy playstyle and spend more time mining underground to accommodate for the scarcer amount of resources normally found on land. The group lampshades their predicament, citing similarities to Waterworld and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker, as well as finding it coincidentally fitting for their goal of the season to reach the Ocean Monument and defeat the Elder Guardians.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • McJones has this reaction in the finale of Terraria #2 when Jeff dies.
    McJones: ...uh-oh... I guess I... get the running boots... Well, crap!
  • Jeff has one in Minecraft #7 when PBG goes silent after screaming during an explosion. Due to the season's lack of death messages and the fact that he wasn't watching him, it isn't until several seconds have passed that he realizes that PBG is dead, and that his worse fears about the season being a repeat of the fifth season are one death (specifically, his own) away from being realized.
    Jeff: You okay? (Beat) NO! NO NO NO NO NO! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!
• Once More, with Clarity:
  • Overlaps with Repeat Cut below in Terraria #3. After the group of McJones, Yungtown and Lucahjin defeats the Wall of Flesh and claims victory, we are treated to a scene where the heroes teleport home and celebrate their big win. Then time is rewound and we see what actually happened - the group teleports home, only to have their home invaded by the Hardmode goblin army, which kills all three of them in short order.
  • In Minecraft #7, this is how the audience gets to see exactly how PBG died in the penultimate episode. Due to the moments leading up to his death being shot entirely from his perspective, and the fact that the Creeper that killed him landed directly behind him, the audience doesn't get to see where the Creeper came from until the montage of deaths at the end of the episode (which served as a teaser for the season finale), where his death is shown in third-person.
• One-Hit Kill:
  • A few people are killed by Creepers at point-blank range this way in Minecraft, specifically Jared in Minecraft #2, Dean (offscreen) in Minecraft #3, PBG in Minecraft #5, Dodger in Minecraft #6, PBG again in Minecraft #7 and Lady Pelvic in Minecraft NB #1. PBG's deaths in Minecraft #5 and #7 are particularly jarring in that he was very well armoured (even having a diamond chestplate), at full health, and very close to the game's Armour cap.
  • The Terraria seasons have seen their fair share of victims to this via underground boulder trap, namely Dean and McJones (simultaneously!) in #1, PBG in #2, and ProtonJon in #3.
• One-Steve Limit:
  • Accidentally subverted in terms of player skins in Minecraft #6, when Chadtronic and SpaceHamster end up mistakenly using two different Barney the Dinosaur skins.
  • Although they haven't appeared in the same season together, two Jons have appeared in Hardcore.
• Poor Communication Kills: In Minecraft #7, the players split into two teams; one half went mining in a nearby mountain, the other mining beneath their house. Ray, acting as sort of the messenger between the two teams, informed the house team that the mountain team said they were keeping the iron they found for themselves... not realizing it was a joke, and leading the house team to go spelunking without proper equipment, resulting in Barry and Jared's deaths. After the fact, when the teams reunite and the mountain team exclaims that they were joking...
  Ray: Oh, were you? Oh. Miscommunication on my part.
  (everyone cracks up)
  Luke: No kidding!
• Post-Climax Confrontation: A few times.
  • In Minecraft #1, after Jon and Barry defeat the Ender Dragon and respawn in the Overworld, they decide to have a brief duel to the death to close out the season.
  • Similarly in Minecraft #4, after the gang slays the Elder Guardians and makes it back from the Ocean Monument, they end things with a four-way battle royale.
  • In the true ending of Terraria #3, after defeating the Wall of Flesh, the group recalls directly into a firefight with the Goblin Army, newly buffed by Hardmode. Considering the Goblin Summoner is a Boss in Mook Clothing designed for mid-Hardmode, they don't exactly put up the best fight.
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner: After trying and failing to make peace with the party in MineZ #2, player "ACrispyWaluigi" has just one thing to say before he begins to fight back, successfully fending off the party and killing McJones in the process:
  ACrispyWaluigi: "i didnt want to do this"
• Pyrrhic Victory:
  • In Minecraft #2, the group is successful in their search for chickens (which they needed for more arrows), but it comes at the cost of Jared and Tim's lives.
  • Another one happens in Terraria #2 when PBG and Dean decide to race home. PBG wins the race, but it inadvertently leads to Barry and Dean dying.
  • Minecraft #5 has this when the group searches for Nether Wart. They eventually find some and successfully escape the Nether... but at the cost of three lives, with only PBG and Jeff still alive to make any use of it. And then, just to put the cherry on it, after PBG dies in an unrelated Creeper incident, Jeff doesn't know how to actually USE the Nether Wart, rendering all those deaths pointless.
  • In Terraria #3, the group defeats the Wall of Flesh, only to get massacred by the Hardmode goblin army when they arrive back home. Everyone comments on how unsatisfying the victory was.
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits:
  • All the Minecraft characters.
    • Minecraft #1: Link, Donald Duck, Zero, Haseo, Master Yi, Jim Raynor, and Shy Guy.
    • Minecraft #2: Shaggy, Yoshi, Locke Cole, a Poet Pirate, Haseo/Marth^note Dean changed his skin very shortly before they started playing, and it took a bit for it to change from Haseo to Marth on the others' screens, Regulus, and Kermit the Frog.
    • Minecraft #3: Luigi, Jet Black/a Dunkin' Donuts employee^note PBG saw Jon as Jet Black, while the others saw Jon as his intended character (except the skin was on backwards for some reason), Waluigi, Smooth McGroove (as himself), Gambit, Ragna, and Hazama.
    • MineZ #1: Jean-Luc Picard, Jar Jar Binks, Ronald McDonald, the Rathalos Monster Hunter Guy, Kamina, Quote, and Beaker.
    • Minecraft #4: The King of All Cosmos, Shrek, The Burger King, Hisoka, Dedan, and the "Fuzzy Pickles!" guy.
    • Minecraft #5: Arthur, Miror B., Ramza Beoulve, The Genie, Speed O' Sound Sonic, Professor Layton, and Pumkin.
    • MineZ #2: Elmo, Tingle, a hot dog, Balthier, Katsuki Bakugo, Brad Armstrong, and Paddington Bear.
    • Minecraft #6: A combo meal, Bilbo Baggins, Barney, Sailor Mercury, another Barney, Pepsiman, and Naruto.
    • Minecraft #7: TV Color Test Pattern, Lucca, Santa Claus, Mike Wazowski, Toad, Kazuma Kuwabara, and Jorji Costava
    • Minecraft NB #1: Mike Dawson, RosaJon, a horse lawyer, Jack Sparrow, a red crewmate, Walter White, and Garfield.
  • For Starbound HC, Lucahjin and ProJared have skins that are reminiscent of how they look in real life. Jirard and PBG, while similar to how they look, are actually an Apex and Novakid respectively. On the other side of the spectrum, Jeff is a blue Apex, Barry and Jesse are both robots, and Luke is a bird.
• Rapid-Fire "No!": Used a lot in combination with "Not like this!" whenever someone's about to die. Notable examples include PBG in Terraria #1 after Jeff died, Jeff and Barry in MineZ #1 right before they died, and Dean when he died in MineZ #2.
• Recurring Riff: The Doom "Suspense" track plays during every Minecraft Nether excursion, as well as during the trip to the Underworld in Terraria #3, essentially making it the official theme of Hell for the Hardcore series.
• Repeat Cut:
  • Minecraft #3:
    • Parodied in Episode 5. We see Jared's point of view as he walks around the house when someone screams and a prompt in chat shows him that Dean has been killed by a Creeper. The camera rewinds, the cross through Dean's avatar is removed, and we switch to Smooth's POV as he mines in the ground. Then Dean, still offscreen, is killed by a Creeper and the prompt appears onscreen just like it did from Jared's POV, and a message appears apologizing for not catching Dean's death.
    • A similar event played straight happens in Episode 9. We see Jared's POV as he's attacked and killed by Creepers. The camera again rewinds, the cross through Jared's avatar is removed, and we switch to PBG's POV as he's inside the house. He and McJones go outside to investigate when they hear the first explosion, and they have just enough time to watch Jared go sailing from the second explosion and fall to his death. The main difference between the two is that we get to see Jared's death from two different perspectives, whereas Dean's isn't seen in either case.
  • Minecraft #5:
    • Episode 9 ends with poor Jared getting knocked into lava by a spider and burning to a crisp. Episode 10 begins just a few seconds before it happens, this time focusing on PBG. PBG rushes over when he hears Jared scream, but is too late to do anything except watch helplessly.
    • In Episode 20, Jeff is similarly helpless when he watches PBG get blown apart by a Creeper. A minute and a half later, we get a brief flashback of the event from PBG's perspective.
  • Terraria #3:
    • Episode 15 begins with a brief preparation montage ending with Jeff accidentally killing himself. After the title card, we're given another look at the events that lead up to Jeff's death.
    • The finale shows McJones, Yungtown and Lucahjin teleporting home and celebrating after defeating the Wall of Flesh with relative ease. Suddenly, the backplate and avatars glitch out, time rewinds, and we see what actually happened afterwards—they teleport home and are immediately assaulted by the Hardmode goblin army, which makes short work of them.
  • Minecraft #7: Episode 4 begins with a "Previously on Hardcore" segment, showing PBG and Dean's perspective during the zombie outbreak that killed Barry and Jared in Episode 2, before the Hardcore intro comes up and the episode begins proper.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: After Dean dies in Minecraft #2, PBG gets serious and swears to kill all the monsters in Dean's name as epic music starts to play, but quickly decides to simply turn around and return to the house.
• Rule of Seven: The Hardcore playthroughs always have seven people. All except Minecraft #4 and Starbound, which had six and eight respectively, but even then Minecraft #4 was originally supposed to feature Yungtown, making seven.invoked
• Rule of Three: Although unintentional, Barry, a series regular, has been unable to attend every season with a multiple of three. Each time, though, one of the guests seems to fill his shoes very handily.
• Running Gag:
  • "Who needs a map?", prevalent throughout the first five Minecraft seasons, much to McJones's dismay.
  • PBG's morbid affection for slaughtering pigs. While the first thing anyone from the group would do in a field of pigs is to slaughter them all for food, being common sense in Minecraft, he tends to go one step beyond and announce it for the world to hear, relishing in every moment of the bloodshed the whole way through.
  • It's expanded to just pigs in general, like in Minecraft #5, where he has a moment with two pink sheep that he mistakenly refers to as pigs initially, which later get him killed by a Creeper after he calls them bad omens, and Terraria #3, where he buys a piggy bank (which is functionally useless in Hardcore) and names it "Piggy Peebs", giving it its own special room on the roof of the house.
  • Referring to two split-off parties as "Team 1" and "Group B".
• Sadistic Choice: A rare non-premeditated example; in Minecraft #6, the group has to decide whether to resurrect the long-dead McJones or the recently-slain Dodger when they obtain the Totem of Undying. They choose the latter, leaving McJones dead for good.
• Sanity Slippage: In Minecraft #2, Episode 20, Barry claims to feel Dean's presence in his sword, and rambles to a Wither Skull named Jeffrey after becoming the Sole Survivor in the previous episode.
• Savage Setpiece: An ongoing problem in the Minecraft seasons is the group's tendency is enrage hordes of Zombie Pigmen in the Nether. See History Repeats above.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: In Minecraft #3, McJones leaves the group to build his own house after Jon makes a stream of lava flow through their wooden house as a decoration. The rest of the group (except PBG and Jon) quickly follow.
• Sequel Escalation:
  • Applies to the Terraria seasons. Although the main goal is the same in all of them, to defeat the Wall of Flesh, in Terraria #1, most of the party is dead by the time they make it to the first boss, the Eye of Cthulhu, and PBG and Jeff both fall in battle, just barely losing to it, whereas in Terraria #2 and #3, they end up easily killing it more than once (in the second season in particular, they make it to the first Eye of Cthulhu battle without any casualties prior to and during the fight), and all in all they make it much closer to their end goal than the first time around.
  • Taken further between Terraria #2 and #3, where, much like the case above, everyone but McJones is dead by the time the Wall of Flesh is fought in Terraria #2, and he just barely loses to it himself, whereas in Terraria #3, it gets utterly curb-stomped by him and two others without putting up so much as a threat to anyone's health.
  • On the other end of the spectrum, the Z series (DayZ, MineZ #1 & #2), continually sets a new record for number of deaths any one episode. Three people were killed in a single episode in DayZ, four in MineZ #1, and a whopping five in the finale of MineZ #2.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog:
  • Any Hardcore series that results in a total party wipe, obviously, especially if they don't even make it to the Final Boss of that series.
  • In Episodes 13 and 14 of MineZ, the story follows Zombie Infectees PBG and McJones trying to find an antidote for their zombie virus after spending many episodes infected. In the fourteenth part, McJones is killed by a random zombie, and in Part 16, PBG dies from being spooked off a balcony, making the quest all for nothing.
  • There is also the group's quest to obtain Nether Wart in Minecraft #5. After losing McJones, Ray and Dean in the Nether and nearly suffering a Total Party Kill to obtain the stuff, in the end, only Jeff is able to make any use of it. Except it turns out he has no idea how to, making their extra excursion all for naught.
  • In Minecraft #6, the group loses McJones very early on due to a failed spot check causing him to misstep into a stream of lava. At the beginning, Todd gives the group an extra, optional objective to pursue a Totem of Undying held deep in the jungle to resurrect a player of their choice. After a grueling expedition of exploring the jungle, obtaining the Totem of Undying, and attempting to return home to revive McJones after nine whole episodes, Dodger is killed instantly by a Creeper right outside the home base. After a long discussion, the group decides to revive her instead of McJones, resulting in hardly any net gain at all from the jungle excursion. Furthermore, Dodger ends up dying again a mere three episodes later in the Nether, making her revival essentially moot.
• Short Cuts Make Long Delays: The group's decision to attempt to traverse through a Bastion as a potential shortcut to a Nether Fortress in Minecraft NB #1 gets Shane killed, forcing the group to resort to mining aimlessly to find a proper Fortress.
• Shout-Out:
  • In Minecraft #4: Part 15, it's a little hard to see without pausing the video, but the guys managed to make a Tower of Pimps.
  • In Terraria #3: Part 24, Luke begins to tell a story about a time in his life when he was sent to a boot camp and forced to dig holes out in the hot sun everyday... until McJones calls his bluff and tells him he's already heard of Holes.
  • Most of the Minecraft skins they use are these. Dean always uses skins of anime characters.
  • In MineZ #2, while traversing through the forest, Group B jokes that they might find the Master Sword here.
  • In Minecraft #6, after Dodger is revived, Dean wonders if she's a Manchurian Agent and suggests that she isn't the real Dodger and just some clone with all of the real person's memories, a reference to when Barry the Chopper made Alphonse question his own existence in Fullmetal Alchemist. (One of the others catches on to this reference.)
• Skybox: In the finale of Terraria #3, the backplate and the avatars glitch.
• Skyward Scream: PBG does one in Minecraft #2 when Dean dies, including showing his footage of raising his sight skyward.
  PBG: Noooo! Noooo! DEEAAAN!
• Sneaky Departure: A couple notable instances, sometimes intentional, sometimes not, and a couple with fatal results:
  • Minecraft #1: While on an expedition to find Jon, PBG drifts away from the main group until stumbling into the desert, whereupon he begins fighting everything he sees. He holds his own for a good while, until he gets himself killed by an Enderman.
  • Minecraft #2: Tim gets lost in the woods midway through the season. He is eventually found and heads home, only to be ambushed in a pond by several mobs and blown up as his controls are malfunctioning.
  • Minecraft #3: Smooth McGroove spends the majority of the season down in his own handmade mineshaft, separated from the rest of the group. Dean impatiently leaves the home base at night early on when he can't find someone to protect him from Creepers, and ultimately dies to one as a result, with no one there to witness his death.
  • Terraria #2 and #3: PBG in #2 and ProtonJon in #3 briefly disembark from the rest of the group to explore underground before getting suddenly killed by a boulder trap.
  • Minecraft #5: PBG gets lost in the woods on his own a few episodes into the season. Thankfully, he survives.
  • MineZ #2: After Barry tells his team to "hold up", Dean ignores him and charges ahead on his own to scout out the building they were headed towards. He dies seconds before the others can catch up.
• Sole Survivor: Strangely enough, this was a recurring theme for Barry for a while, although Death by Pragmatism became more and more commonplace for the poor guy, to the point that he was the first to go in some of his later appearances.
  • Minecraft #1: Averted in the regular season. Jon and Barry defeat the Ender Dragon together. Afterwards, they have a fight to the death, which is Played for Laughs at the time. However, Barry wins the duel, which is much Harsher (or Hilarious) in Hindsight considering the seasons to come.
  • DayZ: Jared, although even he is gunned down after a while, then blasted with a grenade.
  • Terraria #1: PBG, though it doesn't stay that way for long since he dies only moments after Jeff. In an ironic contrast from how he fares in other seasons, Barry is the first to die this time around.
  • Minecraft #2: The second Minecraft season sets the trend for Barry, with him acting as the Sole Survivor after the traumatic events of Episode 19, and he spends the entire twentieth episode slowly going entirely insane and talking to a sword enchanted with Dean's soul and a Wither Skull named "Jeffrey".
  • Mount & Blade: Shane in Episode 1. In Episode 2, Barry in the first round (keeping with his trend), Shane again in the second round, and Jeff in the third. None of them last long, however.
  • Diablo II: Completely averted, being a successful season with two survivors and a Happy Ending.
  • Minecraft #3: Smooth McGroove after Shane's death in the Nether. Like most others, he doesn't live for much longer.
  • MineZ:
    • Coincidentally, this season once again ends with Barry as the last survivor after Jeff and Ian die in the final battle and Barry slays their zombies. It only lasts a few seconds, but it's still a very effective few seconds.
      Barry: Not like this! Not like this! Not like this!!
    • However, because of MineZ's Anachronic Order, the deaths didn't quite happen in the order they were shown. McJones confirmed in a comment that he was the first to die, followed by Dean, then Jared, Jeff, Ian, Barry, and ending with PBG as the true last survivor. After leaving the two brothers, the other five reached the Sirus cave exit at early morning before departing, while PBG and McJones escaped from the cave later that same day. The other five arrived at Knoxmoor Inn shortly after the brothers arrived at the desert town of Bazel, where McJones was killed that night. PBG left Bazel the following day while the others ventured to the Pirate Ship and dropped a poisoned Dean off, whereupon he later died. As PBG continued his journey out in the wilderness by himself, the remaining four headed for Camp Kharj, where Jared was jumped and perished. Part of PBG's journey was edited down for the episodes, but he swam to Grayvale on the morning that the other three faced off against the Giant, ultimately outliving the rest of them before meeting his unfortunate end inside Grayvale at midday. Although Barry could still count as Sole Survivor anyway, as he was the last man standing out of the Camp Kharj expedition.
  • Terraria #2: Discussed when McJones and Jeff joke about ProtonJon, the least-knowledgeable on the game of the whole group, ending up as the last survivor and continuing the series as a solo Let's Play. Subverted when he later dies, leaving only Jeff and McJones left. The real survivor is McJones, who fights the final boss by himself after Jeff is abruptly killed on his way to the fight. Unless one counts Gunther the penguin, who presumably outlives McJones.
  • Minecraft #4: Averted in the regular season, but, intriguingly enough, the first one to die this time around ended up being Barry, in contrast to other seasons, and the last man standing from the post-celebration battle-royale is none other than Dean, of all people.
  • Minecraft #5: Jeff, after PBG is blown up by a creeper from behind. Team PB and Jeff could also count as a somewhat meta-example too.
  • Terraria #3: Averted in the regular season, as the group successfully manages to kill the Wall of Flesh. In the epilogue, however, McJones manages to last a few seconds longer than Yungtown and Lucahjin against the Hardmode goblin army.
  • MineZ #2: Jared, if only for a few moments, after Barry and PBG are knocked into the void and Jeff and Ian are killed by Pigmen and Zombies. He tries to jump to the second island only to be hit into the void by a zombie in mid air.
  • Minecraft #6: Averted. Despite losing Jared in the tail end of the fight, Jeff, Chad, and Dean successfully take the Wither down, and ended the Hardcore season without a Battle Royale.
  • Starbound: Averted. Despite the deaths of Luke and Lucahjin earlier in the episode, Jared, Jirard, and Jesse survive to the end without a Battle Royale.
  • Minecraft #7: Once again, Jeff becomes this after PBG is separated from him and gets blown up by a creeper from behind.
  • Minecraft NB #1: Jirard, after Jon perishes to a Wither Skeleton. Like others listed here, he doesn't last much longer.
• Something We Forgot:
  • The group forgetting to get soul sand in Minecraft #4 incites a second trip to the Nether, where things go very poorly.
  • Jeff realizes in Minecraft #5, after nearly obtaining all the necessary items to enter the End, that the group neglected to farm chickens for arrows. Subverted, however, in that he manages to rectify this and build a chicken farm all on his own.
  • Upon first entering the Nether in Minecraft #6, the portal is suspended over a sea of lava. Jared spends a lot of time meticulously building a bridge so the group can cross to safety. However, he makes a small oversight and forgets to build a wall on the backside. Not long after, when PBG accidentally aggroes a Pigman and the group retreats to the portal, PBG is knocked off and Dodger runs right off the ledge in a panic, resulting in the both of them melting to death.
• Sophisticated as Hell:
  McJones: Is it just me or are we a lot more hostile towards each other than we usually-
  Dean: Hey, fuck you, McJones, I'm as cordial as shit.
• Speak Ill of the Dead:
  • In Minecraft #3, the first thing Jon says after Dean dies is, "Thank God, can we be honest?"
  • The team pulls no punches at Jeff's funeral in Terraria #3, lamenting how utterly stupid his death was.
  • Dean's death in MineZ #2 gets a lot of scorn from the rest of his team, who saw it as incredibly stupid and easily avoidable. PBG even invokes the trope by name during his eulogy.
    Barry: He died as he lived. Being a goddamn fool.
    PBG: *later on, to the tune of the famous Seven Dwarfs Heigh-Ho* ...and Dean is dead, and no one cares, Heigh-Ho! *cue everyone laughing*
• Spiritual Successor: MineZ, which is a DayZ Game Mod in the Minecraft engine in and of itself, and is essentially another try at the concept of DayZ, but with the added benefit of Minecraft's more comfortable layout and mechanics, as well as the reduced effectiveness of ranged weapons for Griefers to use, who are already fewer and farther between than in DayZ. All of this puts the group in more familiar territory and gives them more of a chance to succeed. Both seasons of MineZ even begin with the team split up into two groups in separate locations, a concept originally planned for DayZ (as seen in the Train Wreck Blooper).
• Spoiler Opening:
  • Averted for the most part, the openings tend to contain lines and scenes confined to the earlier parts of each season, usually before any major cliffhangers or near-death situations.
  • It's difficult to tell if it's an oversight or deliberate, but in Part 11 of Minecraft #6, Dodger's portrait on the title screen isn't greyed out to indicate their death in the previous episode. That very same episode has the team opting to revive her over McJones, negating the death.
• Stealth Pun: In Minecraft NB #1, Chad offhandedly mentions he hopes to die in front of ProtonJon, so he can say 'I'm sorry, Jon.' Fitting, considering his skin is Garfield. Doubles as a Brick Joke when it comes to pass later on in the season, and Todd even plays it up by editing in a ghostly silhouette of Garfield with Chad's face on it, who proceeds to moan 'I'm sorry, Jonnn...'
• Stuff Blowing Up:
  • A common theme when it comes to deaths, resulting in the deaths of Jared in DayZ, Jared (again) and Tim in Minecraft #2, Dean and Jared (once again) in Minecraft #3, Jared (because who else) in MineZ #1, PBG in Minecraft #5, Dodger in Minecraft #6, and PBG (again) in Minecraft #7.
  • Lampshaded by Todd in Minecraft #6 when talking with Jared, who solemnly agrees.
• Stock Scream: The Wilhelm Scream is played in MineZ#2, Part 10 when Ian hits a zombie off a ledge.
• Stupid Sacrifice: In Minecraft #2, many viewers felt like ProJared's death was one. Had he gone up earlier to kill the Creeper when he saw it approach PBG, instead of letting it get closer and putting them both in a more unfavorable position, he probably would have survived, despite the instances of lag on all sides.
• Surprisingly Sudden Death: Many of the deaths qualify, to the point that it would be harder to think of examples where this doesn't happen. There's numerous cases where someone appears to be in no danger at all, only to die within seconds from something that nobody saw coming. This trope especially thrives in games like Minecraft and Terraria which are full of random, unexpected dangers. Some standout occurences:
  • Minecraft #4: Barry had just settled down after killing two separate Wither Skeletons and assumed the fight was over, when an enraged Baby Zombie Pigman ran down the Nether hallway, killing him in one hit.
  • Minecraft #5:
    • While mining for ore underground, Jared is attacked from above by a spider and gets knocked back into lava, where he burns to death. While looking for Netherwart, Ray hits a lava vein which spills over, trapping Dean and killing him in less than seven seconds.
    • PBG gets one-shotted by a Creeper that managed to sneak up from behind him. The lack of sound aside from the explosion, Jeff, and PBG beforehand makes the surprise all the more sudden. Jeff even lampshades it when he finally recovers from the shock:
      Jeff: YOU'VE GOT TO BE JOKING!
  • MineZ #2: PBG seems to be safe after he survives the first platforming segment at the Floating Isles. Similar to Jared's death above, he's ambushed from above by a Zombie, this time from behind, and is knocked into the Bottomless Pit that surrounds the islands.
  • Starbound:
    • In a routine skirmish against a monster, Jeff accidentally triggers the secondary fire on his weapon (which functioned as a short-range teleport), launching him off of a bridge and into a deep pit, causing him to fall to his death.
    • In even less danger than Jeff before him, Barry also accidentally falls off a bridge over a large gap, killing him as well.
  • Minecraft #7: After narrowly avoiding being killed after accidentally falling down a chasm in a moment of carelessness, PBG seems to be out of immediate danger. Soon after, as he begins to explore the chasm he has fallen into, a Creeper falls down there and lands behind him, killing him instantly when it explodes, similar to his death in Minecraft #5. Unlike Minecraft #5, the audience doesn't even get to see the Creeper until a replay after the fact^note Jeff isn't looking when it happens, and unlike some of the previous deaths, no third-person perspective of PBG's death is used until the end of the video.
• Survivor's Guilt: Jeff gets hit with this after being the last man standing in Minecraft #5. Made all the more worse since he tried to warn PBG about the Creeper that ended up killing him, but was just a little too late to prevent his death, and only barely got out of the blast radius himself.
• Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Smooth McGroove in Minecraft #3, Yungtown in Terraria #3, and Chadtronic in Minecraft #6 for Barry. Not only do they appear in the only seasons where Barry was absent, but all of them coincidentally sported the qualities that he is known for: calm voices, laid-back demeanors, and no-nonsense personalities. They even become the last few survivors/victors of their respective seasons, something Barry was known for in the earlier seasons.
• Take a Moment to Catch Your Death:
  • In MineZ #2, PBG manages to get past the first parkour segment of the Floating Islands and turns around to watch the rest of the group make their attempt from what he believes is a safe spot. A Zombie drops down from the staircase above and knocks him into the chasm, killing him.
  • In Minecraft #6, Jared's group obtains the Totem of Undying, but is teleported to the spawn point surrounded by mobs. The group appears to make it home safe, only for a Creeper to sneak behind the group and explode right behind Dodger, killing her instantly.
  • In Minecraft #7, PBG takes a moment to recompose himself after narrowly avoiding falling to his death. Only a few seconds after he calms down, a Creeper falls down the chasm, landing right behind him and exploding, which kills him instantly.
  • In Minecraft NB #1, Chad briefly lets his guard down after the Enderman that was attacking him teleports away, only to be killed seconds later when it teleports back behind him.
• Take That!: Terraria HC #3! - Part 18, has PBG, McJones, and Dean trash talking Denton, TX.
• Take That, Audience!: Yungtown briefly pokes fun at the comments section in Part 7 of Starbound HC:
  Yungtown: Everyone in the comments, it's really important that you tell us how to play after we've played.
• Talking Weapon: Played with in Minecraft #2 with the "Dean Sword" (a diamond sword which was named after Dean). As part of Barry's played-up Sanity Slippage in the finale as he succumbs to the stress of being the last surviving member of the party, he claims that the sword is talking to him. As part of the gag, some of Dean's dialogue throughout the season was added to the recording during the editing process, so that the audience can hear it talking at the points where Barry claims it is.
• Teleporter Accident:
  • In Minecraft #6, due to a glitch, PBG ends up being teleported to an entirely separate part of the Nether than the rest of the party when they go through the Nether Portal for the first time.
  • In Starbound, Jeff dies when he accidentally triggers the teleportation function on his sword, which teleports him into a pit deep enough that he dies from Falling Damage when he hits the ground.
• Tempting Fate: Usually happens when PBG states that he's surprised that nobody has died yet in the current season, generally followed by someone dying shortly after.
  • In Minecraft #2, PBG says in Episode 5 how surprised he is that no-one has died, and a few minutes later, Dean gets killed by a skeleton archer.
  • Lampshaded word-for-word in Episode 11 of Minecraft #4, when PBG walks up to a zombie pigman, asking if they're no longer aggro'd.
    Jeff: Don't tempt fate.
  • In Episode 6 of the same season, someone said, since they were fully armed and armored, that "nothing can really touch us" and that they should "just go out and steamroll stuff now". Good thing they all went out together, because right on top of their wheat farm spawned about a dozen zombies, several skeletons, multiple creepers, a witch, and an Enderman, which resulted in one of the biggest and most important battles of the season, since the wheat was their only consistent food supply.
  • Minecraft #5: After the group splits up in the Nether, =McJones mentions that there hasn't been any death messages, meaning the other team (Ray, Dean, and Jeff) is still safe. Fifteen seconds later, Dean dies when Ray accidentally opens a lava vein and traps him in.
  • Also from Minecraft #5: PBG mentions that a pink-wooled sheep that they stumble upon is a bad omen. A mere six seconds later, PBG is the victim of a One-Hit Kill from a Creeper.
  • Minecraft #6: PBG wonders out loud if this will be the one season where they don't anger the Zombie Pigmen. Not ten seconds later, he catches a Pigman with his sword's sweeping attack and gets the whole group chased back to the Nether Portal, resulting in his and Dodger's deaths.
  • Starbound: After Lucahjin and Jesse warn Jeff about the dangers of digging straight down, Jeff dismisses the possibility of him falling to his death by noting that the view distance would give him enough warning to stop digging. While it's not a direct result his digging, he plummets to his death thirty seconds later when he accidentally teleports into a chasm during the middle of a battle. For extra irony, the cavern he falls into is pitch black.
  • Minecraft #7: PBG openly acknowledges this in Part 4, remarking how the worst part of Barry and Jared dying so early is that he can't jinx it by saying no-one has died yet.
• The Load:
  • In Terraria #1 and Minecraft #3, Jon spends more time goofing off and destroying houses than he does helping the group.
  • Dean was often this in earlier seasons of Hardcore, but has mostly since grown out of it. Mostly.
  • In Terraria #2, between nearly killing Dean by digging a hole for him to fall down, letting a Demon Eye into the house, haphazardly throwing bombs around the base, almost crushing Satch with sand, and actually leading Dean to his death during the Death Race (and leaving Barry to die in the process), it's safe to say PBG wasn't exactly the best teammate that season.
  • In Starbound, PBG ends up playing this role for most of the season, though by no fault of his own. He spends most of the season crippled by a massive (and often effectively unplayable) amount of lag, which ultimately results in his death by a physics glitch.
• The Many Deaths of You: On its own page here.
• The Un-Favourite: Often Invoked and Lampshaded with Dean (although he's still well-loved in the fandom, and the comments at his expense are in jest). In Terraria #2:
  Jeff: (after both Barry and Dean have died) Honestly, I didn't even notice Dean died, for a second. I was more upset about with Barry!
• Too Dumb to Live: Yet another frequent occurrence.
  • Minecraft #1:
    • Soah dies after disobeying the classic Minecraft rule "never dig straight down". While he did have a plan to reduce the risk (as he demonstrates here), the fact that it ultimately failed just proves why the rule exists.
    • PBG falls victim to this later on in the season. Hunting for Endermen all by himself in an isolated, mob-filled desert in the night, especially after two near-death experiences, was not the wisest of ideas. The fact that PBG misclicked and switched from his sword to a bow, ineffectively hitting an Enderman with it, only made it worse.
  • DayZ: Jon has a good one when he jumps off a building after PBG. Whereas PBG merely glitched through the railing in a very obvious accident, Jon inexplicably follows seconds after him and, unsurprisingly, dies in a similar manner.
  • Terraria #1: Paul & Barry's deaths could have been avoided if only the group hadn't split up and gone wandering around at night without armour.
  • Minecraft #2: The group's decision to start killing Zombie Pigmen in an effort to get more Wither Skeletons to spawn. It did have some merit, and even initially worked, but in hindsight only proved to be a fatal mistake...
  • Minecraft #3: At the end of the season, Smooth ditches his relatively safe vantage point and charges toward some Blazes with barely over half health. Although he soon decides to flee from them instead, he only ends up running into more of them, and is ultimately snuck up on and killed by a Wither Skeleton whilst trying to kill the Blazes. He might have died anyway, but he would've been better off waiting for his health to regenerate all the way before charging into battle.
  • Terraria #2:
    • In Episode 10, the group is split up as PBG and Dean decide to race home. As Dean is assailed by a Demon Eye, PBG zooms on ahead in his determination to win the race. Just as he makes it home, Barry and Dean are both swarmed by enemies and killed in short succession of one another. If all six of them had stayed together on the return journey, they probably would've been fine. Even if they hadn't, Dean's death at least could've been avoided if PBG had stayed behind to help him fight off enemies.
    • In the final episode, Jeff shows remarkable carelessness with opening and closing his umbrella during the Hellevator descent, and dies from a stray block of dirt as a result.
  • Minecraft #5:
    • When the perspective splits in Episode 13, Ray, Jeff, and Dean, originally tasked with farming Blaze rods, decide to head out on their own in search of Netherwart. They reach a dead end, and resort to mining through the Netherrack. A minute later, Ray accidentally strikes lava and Dean is killed. Apparently, the group didn't do their homework on the previous seasons, and while it's more forgivable for newcomer Ray and even Dean, Jeff, having been a previous editor for Hardcore, probably should have known from experience that this wasn't a good idea. It didn't help that the group had already split up earlier (a bad idea in the Nether in and of itself), and the two people who were victims of this exact death in the prior season, PBG and McJones, were the only ones not there to warn them.
    • After McJones dies, PBG, Jeff, and Ray retreat into a small room and find temporary shelter there. Even though Ray is down to about half health, he ventures out into the hallway and brazenly charges at a Wither skeleton, gets knocked down to one hit point, and dies from withering away. If he had stood back to eat and finish healing before rejoining the fight instead of jumping the gun, or even munched on a steak quickly enough when he was withered, he might have been able to survive. To be fair, he seemed to be unaware that the wither effect can kill, but in the same episode, McJones mentions that attribute about the wither effect.
  • Terraria #3: While all of the pre-epilogue deaths this season occur due to varying lapses of judgment, SpaceHamster's infamous grappling hook error absolutely takes the cake. After acquiring a spare grappling hook from Yungtown, Jeff tries it out on a series of floating platforms the team built next to home base. Getting a feel for how a new item works is fine, except he decides to test it at a height that would kill him instantly if he messed it up and fell. As a result, after missing a platform with his grapple hook while jumping from several dozen feet in the air, he plummets and splatters himself all over the front gate of the team's home base. Dean lampshades how dumb it was soon afterwards:
    Dean: WHAT. THE. FUCK!?!? THAT'S how we lose Jeff?!
  • MineZ #2: Given that running away from the group tends to have dire consequences in the main Minecraft series, the threat of catching the Zombie disease should have driven the point home. It comes as little surprise that Dean quickly gets himself killed after running off on his own, especially after repeated warnings from the rest of his team to stop doing that, and the fact that he had mentioned that he was injured mere moments before he took off. Adding to the foolishness is that he died from opening a trapped chest, which were already shown to be a danger earlier in the season.
• Took a Level in Badass:
  • Dean. In most of the early seasons, Dean was rather incompetent, vulnerable and hardly knew about the games being played. As a result, he often was the first or second one to die. He eventually grew out of this as of Minecraft #4, where he was a rather capable fighter. He ended up outliving Barry, one of the better players, and even survived the final mission. Taking it even further, he wins the battle royale at the end between the survivors. Quite the leveling for someone who was once considered The Load.
  • There's also McJones in Terraria #2. He winds up as the last remaining member and had mentioned previously that he hoped this wouldn't happen, because he has no experience in Let's Plays or solo commentary. But he is and builds a bridge across hell to fight the Wall of Flesh. On his own. And he almost made it, bringing it down to 300 HP, while he had less than 400 HP himself, all on his own. Unfortunately he ended up killed too.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom:
  • In Minecraft #5, while mining through Netherrack, Ray opens up a pocket of lava that spills out into the hallway and burns poor Dean to a crisp.
  • In Terraria #3, Yungtown gives Jeff a grappling hook, a very useful climbing item, in Episode 15. Jeff immediately goes to test it out, and kills himself in the process mere seconds later.
  • In Minecraft #7, Jeff mines open a passageway to a cave teeming with zombies and mobs in an attempt to find a safe route. This proves unsuccessful, as the horde floods through the passageway and chases the group upstairs, overwhelming and killing both Barry and Jared in the process.
• We Hardly Knew Ye:
  • Soah, who has the shortest screentime of any Hardcore player. He dies just two episodes into Minecraft #1, his only appearance on the show, burning alive due to breaking a block next to lava.
  • Kyrak in Minecraft #2 doesn't fare much better. He makes it to Part 8, but spends the majority of his time lagging out and barely able to participate, before PBG puts him out of his misery. He too has not been seen since.
  • Ross, to a lesser extent. While he participated in two seasons and is a prominent player throughout his lifespan, he dies quite early in Diablo II, and DayZ was a short season anyway. All in all, he shows up in a grand total of seven episodes.^note Eight if the DayZ Train Wreck Blooper is counted.
  • Satchell as well, who is one of the most subdued players of the series, and is the team's first casualty when he dies only eight episodes into the adventure. Especially noteworthy in comparison to Terraria #2's other guest, ProtonJon, who lasted much longer and also returned for Terraria #3 and Minecraft NB #1.
  • The Completionist was this initially, appearing in ONE episode of Minecraft #1 before dying. However, he would later go on to appear in Diablo II, Starbound, and Minecraft NB #1, in all of which he had a much more prominent role.
  • Lady Pelvic, appearing in Minecraft NB #1, dies in the third episode due to an unfortunate run-in with a couple of creepers, setting her behind only Soah as the Hardcore player with the fewest appearances.
• Wham Episode: The series has had its fair share of these:
  • Minecraft #1, Episode 15 - "Spiral Staircase": PBG's death at the very end of the episode. While he hadn't exactly been playing it carefully, it's still rather shocking to see him die off so suddenly after having gone so long without any new deaths, especially to people unfamiliar with the progression of the series (so basically everyone when it first came out) who might not have thought that the rest of the season would carry on without its main host. PBG even posted a notice on the preview for the next episode letting people know that the remaining episodes would still air on his channel.
  • DayZ, Episode 1 - "Ft. RubberRoss + ProJared": The season starts off with a bang as McJones, PBG, and Jon are all killed off. For the longest time, this held the record for the most casualties in a single episode.
  • Minecraft #2, Episode 19 - "Today We Farm": Barry is the only one still alive at the end of the episode.
  • Diablo II, Episodes 9 & 10 - "Boss Time" & "Internenary": Two back-to-back. In Ep. 9, PBG is poisoned during a fight and almost dies. Then in Ep. 10, Dean, the biggest help to them, is killed in one hit by a Flayer Shaman.
  • Minecraft #3, Episode 11 - "To the Nether": Both PBG and McJones are burned to death in a pool of lava.
  • MineZ:
    • Episode 4 - "Cookie Thief": The two groups meet up and a frantic scene follows as Dean loses almost all of his health from his infection, but he is successfully cured.
    • Episode 7 - The aptly titled "Utter Chaos": The cave expedition goes haywire when Dean (again), PBG and McJones all become infected with the zombie virus.
    • Episode 11 - "This Is Our House": The first (confirmed) death in the series, Jared dies from a pig zombie that comes out of nowhere, and immediately comes back as a zombie and turns on the others. Even more shocking when you consider how far they'd made it into the season without any deaths.
    • Episode 14 - "I Don't Like This!": PBG watches as McJones falls victim to a zombie, and is later forced to shooting his brother's zombie in the head.
    • Episode 16 - "The Last Supper": The final episode of MineZ, this was bound to be an eventful one. "Team PBG" looks to be doing alright, until about halfway through the episode, where he is ambushed by a zombie, and dives off a ledge to escape it. He hits the ground and is instantly killed by the impact of the force. We cut to the remaining members of the group, as they engage the Giant in battle. They all die off one by one, and Barry becomes the Sole Survivor again. It doesn't last long though, as he is quickly killed by the Giant. All in all, four people died, setting a new record for the most deaths in any one episode (excluding Mount & Blade).
  • Minecraft #4, Episode 9 - "Minecraft AMSR!": The group's first trip to the Nether quickly descends into complete chaos in the episode's final moments when McJones attacks a Pigman and the group are forced to run for their lives through the fortress.
  • Minecraft #5:
    • Episodes 14 & 15 - "Crazy Pigman Battle!!" & "Blazes Left and Right!": Another back-to-back. After having lost Dean in Episode 13 and finding no Netherwart, the group proceeds further into the Nether in search of another fortress, upon which they get trapped in a makeshift shelter surrounded by a seemingly never-ending horde of Zombie Pigmen with no obvious escape routes. After miraculously surviving, once things calm down, the group proceeds to the second Nether fortress, where an overwhelming ambush of Blazes and Wither skeletons claim the lives of McJones and Ray less than a minute apart from each other, leaving PBG and SpaceHamster trapped inside and surrounded on all fronts.
    • Episode 20 - "Bad Omen!!": Jeff is the only survivor after PBG is abruptly killed from a creeper exploding directly behind him, and now Jeff has to kill enough Endermen, find the stronghold, get to the end, kill the Enderdragon, build the bridge, and find the Elytra, all on his own.
  • Terraria #3, Episodes 10 & 11 - "Things Get Real!" & "The Jinx!": Another double whammy - the group suddenly gets severely ambushed in the desert, and while everyone miraculously survives the encounter, there were many close calls, and this is the first time the team as a whole was sent into a frenzied panic. Cue Episode 11, where ProtonJon, having survived being brought down to just 3 health in the previous episode, becomes the group's first major casualty as he gets crushed to death instantly by a boulder trap.
  • MineZ #2, Episode 12 - "The Floating Isles!": Within minutes of arriving at the titular islands, Austin and Barry fall to their deaths, Jeff and Ian are killed by zombies, and Jared misses a jump and plummets to his doom. And then there's the Minecraft 6 teaser.
  • Minecraft #6:
    • Episode 2 - "Find Our Friend!": Here we get the most shockingly early death in a Hardcore season in a long time. As PBG and Chad cover up a gap over lava, a zombie appears, causing them to stop what they're doing and fight it off. McJones walks right off the edge and into lava. Definitely his fastest demise since DayZ.
    • Episode 10 - "Run Home!": After successfully finding the Totem of Undying to revive McJones and successfully making their way home without any casualties, Dodger is abruptly killed by an exploding Creeper right outside the party's doorstep, forcing the group to choose between reviving her or McJones.
    • Episode 13 - "Portal of Cruelty!!": As PBG enters the Nether, he disconnects, causing him to spawn somewhere else in the Nether, far from the portal and the rest of the group.
    • Episode 14 - "Old Habits Die Hard": In the Nether Fortress, PBG accidentally strikes a Zombie Pigman, causing several of them to Zerg Rush the group. As the party flees, Dodger accidentally runs off the other side of the portal into the giant sea of lava below them. PBG is simultaneously knocked off the portal by a Baby Zombie Pigman, and both of them burn to death. Meanwhile, Jeff walls himself inside the nether and has to sneak out alone later.
  • Minecraft #7:
    • Episode 2 - "They Came From Below": Following after Mincraft #6, we get not only one, but two surprisingly early casualties. Jeff opens up a cave, causing several zombies to pour out of it and into the house, which results in both Barry's and Jared's deaths.
    • Episodes 14 & 15 - "Trouble" and "That's a No Go!": The team goes from two deaths to five as Dean and Yungtown fall to Endermen while grinding for Ender Pearls, and Ray falls through a hole and into lava and burns to death.
  • Minecraft NB #1:
    • Episode 10 - "A New Nether": Lucah is unexpectedly killed by a giant Magma Cube as the group attempts to explore the nether, depriving the team of one of their most knowledgeable players.
    • Episode 13 - "A Fortress for Pigs": While exploring a Piglin Bastion after deciding to check it out to see if it had anything useful for their quest, PBG encounters a Piglin Brute, which causes the party to retreat, PBG to seal himself off inside the Bastion, and for Shane to let his guard down just long enough for the Brute to kill him in two swift hits.
• Wham Line: Many, often coming out of nowhere at all:
  • The opening lines of narration are one for someone who has never seen Hardcore before:
    The only catch is... In this adventure... If you die... You're dead for good.
  • Minecraft #3:
    • Episode 5 - "Freakin' Beacon!":
      Jared: THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE!
    • Episode 11 - "To The Nether!":
      McJones: YOU TRAPPED ME IN!
    • Episode 12 - "We Can Do This!":
      Shane: Oh! I died—!
  • MineZ:
    • Episode 7 - "Utter Chaos!":
      PBG: I... I have the disease too!
    • Episode 11 - "This Is Our House!", where Jared screams two words before immediately dying:
      Jared: PIG ZOMBIE!
    • Episode 13 - "The Great Escape?!", in the opening lines of narration at that, coupled with a shot of a barren pirate ship:
      Jeff: [crickets chirping] Dean died.
    • Episode 16 - "The Last Supper!":
      PBG: He's up! He hears me, he hears me, okay, okay, he hear— (crash) Augh! I'm dead!
  • Minecraft #4:
    • Episode 9 - "Minecraft ASMR!":
      McJones: Ahh, I attacked a pigman!
    • Episode 11 - "I Panicked!":
      Caddy: Oh my god! I'm so sorry! I panicked, I panicked!
      Caddicarus_Sucks was slain by Zombie Pigman.
    • and near the end of the same episode...
      (A Zombie Pigman walks towards PBG)
      Jeff: Is he coming for you?
      PBG: He is.
      (The group of neutral Pigmen they just passed start to follow)
      PBG: They are! They all are!
• Zombie Infectee:
  • A huge problem all throughout MineZ, essentially being to this season what the lag issues were to Minecraft #2. Dean is infected early on, but is cured when the two groups reunite and PBG thankfully has an antidote on him. Later on, not only is Dean infected a second time, but PBG and McJones get it too. A server reset glitch causes Dean's character to get erased, which strips him of his items and starts him back at the spawn point, but also conveniently rids him of his poison status. PBG and McJones are less lucky, and are left behind in a dangerous cave for the sake of not endangering the rest of the group. Later still, Dean gets infected again, and is left behind by the group on the pirate ship (to which he later dies offscreen). Meanwhile, the final third of the season cuts back to PBG and McJones, who miraculously escape the cave and go off in search of an antidote. Alas, they are both unable to find one, and ultimately get killed off. Barry too gets infected in the final battle with the Giant after everyone else has died, though only for a short time.
  • McJones even jokes about the whole fiasco at the beginning of the next season, Terraria #2.
    "Nobody get zombie aids this time. Seriously, I'm sick of zombie aids."

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