Escort Mission - Television Tropes & Idioms

"Ahh! Something's trying to kill me! It's the best day ever!"

- The Chief of Knothole Glade's Son, Fable.

"I know what you're thinking. This sounds like an escort mission. Well deal with it!"

- Sergeant Abraham "Grandpa" Simpson, The Simpsons Game

The Escort Mission. The bane of gamers everywhere, alongside the Timed Mission and Luck Based Mission.

Escort Missions are just that… you have to babysit an NPC, keeping them alive through one or more challenges without getting killed or seriously hurt, or sometimes even touched. This wouldn't be so bad, except that 98% of the time, the NPC you have to protect is gifted with all the common sense of a suicidal chipmunk. They die from minimal damage, run ahead into danger before you can clear it, step into your line of fire, and otherwise act Too Dumb To Live. Missions not formally meant to be Escort Missions sometimes become them, when you're saddled with aggressive but stupid NPCs whose survival is one of your victory conditions. Either way they're a sure way to ramp up the frustration level and make a game Nintendo Hard.

Only very rarely are Escort Missions done well, and when they are, it can be amazing. One way to make them less annoying is to give the NPC some combat ability of their own. For example, whole sections of Resident Evil 4 are Escort Missions, but since the AI is exceptional all-around in that game, it's just a slightly added challenge instead of a cue to start breaking things in rage. Alternately, you can give the NPCs Gameplay Ally Immortality, but that tends to lead to You Call That A Wound.

Escort Missions are typically found in First Person Shooters, Third Person Shooters and flight simulator style games, as well as some styles of RPG. They also exist outside of games, where they're used as plot devices, yielding a Live Action Escort Mission, where The Load takes the place of the NPC. If the NPC you're supposed to protect has a bad habit of running into your line of fire or trying to take on foes stronger than he/she is, then you have to deal with a Leeroy Jenkins.

Examples

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Escort Games

Lemmings. There's no player avatar to do the escorting with, but it still fits the premise.
For most of the game, ICO is all about escorting Yorda to the next set of magic statues. Probably the best example ever; it's not unreasonably difficult to protect Yorda from being captured by the shadow creatures, Yorda herself is pivotal to your own progression so you literally wouln't be able to proceed without her, she doesn't do anything stupid or suicidal and she grows on you so much that you actually want to protect her.
This is pretty much the entire premise of the game Disaster Report.
Of course there are also entire genres of escort-mission-based games, an excellent example would be Galapagos, where you have to manipulate the environment of a Death Course in order to save a suicidally stupid little cute robot named Grendel.
The SNES Rocko's Modern Life game, Spunky's Dangerous Day is entirely composed of escort missions.
The FPS Vietcong is essentially a giant escort mission, as none of your 5 squad members are allowed to die during a mission, even if said mission is, say, a hopeless Alamo situation pitting 6 good guys in the fort against what seems to be the entire NVA. It's not as bad as it sounds, since they're fairly competent at taking cover and marksmanship, but considering the game is about the Viet Nam war, where American soldiers on random jungle patrols died like flies to ambushes, it's kind of jarring. On the other hand, the few missions in which you don't have your team are absurdly Nintendo Hard, possibly subverting the trope.
Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island is one big Escort Mission, with the Yoshis trying to reunite Baby Mario with his brother. Mario is knocked off Yoshi's back whenever you take a hit and floats around wailing bloody murder until your Life Energy runs out.
The platformer Sleepwalker requires the player character, a dog named Ralph, to escort a sleepwalking boy around a series of improbable landscapes. For some reason, you have to avoid waking him up, even though he'd probably be able to find his way back to safety if conscious.
Sheep is a puzzle game in which you play a shepherd and have to lead sheep to their safety. Of course, what makes it hard is that they act like sheep.
Pac-Man 2: The New Adventures is an adventure game with a twist: you're not directly controlling the title character. You only tell him what to do, but whether he follows your instructions is another story entirely.
Chu Chu Rocket, in which you must place arrows on the ground to lead mice to the exit while keeping them away from cats.
This was the premise of the arcade shooting game Crossbow, where you provide cover fire for a group of adventurers moving from one end of the screen to the other while being attacked by monsters, lightning bolts, and other things. Your friends weren't very resilient and would die in one hit, although they would occasionally kill a monster they met if you were lucky, rather than the other way around which is what usually happened.
That was the entire point of the 8-bit game "Bubble Ghost", which had the merit of making the player character completely invulnerable. Which is quite useful when you're escorting a soap bubble, the kind of thing that has Everything Trying To Kill It even in Real Life.

Escorting suicidal chipmunks

One of the hardest missions of the original Syndicate involved escorting a NPC between two buildings in a city. Said NPC quite happily wanders out in his own time, completely oblivious to your Badass Longcoated, cybernetically enhanced, minigun wielding agents having a battle with similarly equipped enemy agents.
The climax of the first island's plot in Grand Theft Auto III involves an escort Sniping Mission, where you have to provide sniper cover for an associate who has a penchant for walking calmly into massed automatic rifle fire.
No One Lives Forever parodies this a sniping Escort Mission with a blind and deaf NPC so oblivious that he doesn't even realize he's being escorted, even when enemies start shooting at him from mere feet away. Since he doesn't realize he's in a firefight, he doesn't bother taking cover. Even worse, he'll often walk straight at enemies thinking the sound of their shells bouncing off the floor is a dime
The helicopter sim Comanche 4 had a terrible example of this, where you had a helicopter that would insist on flying high and in a straight line, a perfect target for ground missiles.
In Perfect Dark, the spiritual successor to Goldeneye, a mission in which the player must escort the President of the United States through a hostile (traitorous NSA-controlled) Air Force One becomes greatly problematic for many reasons. In addition to having a penchant for running aimlessly into walls, the President is also commonly killed if the player doesn't first escort him to an escape pod before attempting to complete another mission objective ... which is to set explosives on the Skedar warship that has latched onto the aircraft. While the player is aware that the explosion is dangerous, the President, on the other hand, does not. This is made even worse as this section of the level is a Timed Mission.
- The following mission, where Air Force One crash lands and you have to escort the President to an extraction point is even worse. He simply LOVES to run in front of your semi-automatic rifle while you're sniping someone far away.
Although not technically an escort, the heroes of Final Fantasy Tactics must prevent the death of one or more characters in specific fights; if they fall, it's an instant game over. This is especially irritating in the infamous Riovanes Rooftop mission, where the character in question has a tendency to charge directly at the opponent and get stabbed to death before your team can catch up. If the dice land just wrong, you can lose the game before your first turn.
Flash Game Example: One of the levels in the Homestar Runner game Stinkoman 20X6 pokes fun at this concept, by giving you an escort mission where your escortee is actually supposed to be an idiot. This doesn't make it any less Nintendo Hard.
XIII has General Carrington, who insists on standing in the open taking on the AK-toting baddies with his pistol and getting cut to ribbons; frustration is alleviated slightly by his being a cigar-chomping Father To His Men voiced by Adam West, so at least there's some Comic Relief factor.
Reti in Star Wars Starfighter. At one point you have to escort him through a twisty canyon. The problem is that even if the entire Trade Federation army is in a part of the canyon, he isn't going to stop and hide for even ten seconds while you eliminate the AMT missile tanks. Did we mention that said canyon apparently has a glass roof stuck over the top, since you can't leave it for even a second?

Escorting wet tissues

Armored Core tend to have the people be escorted in rather flimsy mechs or even flimsier tanks or APCs.
- This is made easier by the fact that most escorts take a few seconds to get started on the field after you, with the easiest ones taking up to a full minute. Enemies also rarely spawn in Armored Core - the field is what you've got to deal with, and nothing ever sneaks up on the back of the escort. As such, a fast mech can tear ass ahead and start gutting the oncoming waves far ahead of the escort without any real concern for the escort. It still can't ever take a hit though.
The N64 game Blast Corps features a plot where a truck carrying nuclear missiles has gone out of control and has become an unstable One Hit Point Wonder that explodes if it so much as hits a pothole. In a way, Blast Corps is an escort game: you can't stop the carrier, so you have to destroy everything between it and the safe detonation zone.
In Forbidden Siren, the escorts are slower than the main character, unable to defend themselves in any way (other than ineffectively trying to escape the enemies) and very, very weak. Snipers are found from almost every level and they can each kill an escort with a single bullet.
Scarface: The World Is Yours has one in the mission to take over the Babylon Club, which required Tony to protect a VIP who acted in the typical "stupid escortee" manner.
Some missions in Gundam vs Gundam NEXT Plus involves protecting a wet tissue of a mech, One grating task involves fending off a barrage of nuclear missiles aimed at Akatsuki. He can't fight back, he only has a pitiful amount of HP and he is subject to friendly fire rules, so bringing a mech with a motion wave gun is asking for trouble.
In Spyro: Ripto's Rage (Called Spyro: Gateway To Glimmer in the UK), the "Protect The Alchemist" mission features a defenseless One Hit Point Wonder of an ally who you must protect from wandering monsters. Rather frustratingly, this ally follows a pre-set path that leads him past every single enemy in the level.

Escorting Leeroy Jenkins

Escorting Invulnerables

Being Escorted

Other

Max Payne 2 had an Enemy Mine situation where Max had to protect a whiny, helpless mob boss stuck inside a giant cartoon character costume with a bomb. Annoyingly, this situation turns out to be a Shaggy Dog Story - if Max turned around and walked away the moment he met the guy, the overall plot would have been EXACTLY the same
Dead Rising is an egregious example, being effectively 90% Escort Mission. Protagonist Frank West finds himself rescuing survivors who range from marginally combat-capable to nearly helpless to injured (requiring Frank to carry them piggy-back) and taking them back to the safety of the security room. In some cases this requires a trek all the way across the mall through hordes of zombies. It's saying something about their Artificial Stupidity when the ones you have to carry are the easiest to save.
- On the other hand, it is possible to gather seven out of the eight combat-capable survivors early in the game. They can be a great help when facing huge zombie hordes, providing the clueless bastards don't blow a hole in your back.
The Starship Troopers FPS game has a number of horrendously annoying escorts where your engineer decides that the computer/fence/etc in the middle of the bug horde needs to be repaired.
A fair number of the missions in Devil Survivor qualify, making the game's battle save feature a necessity.
Lucas Arts' Star Wars-themed space combat sims do this just enough to make you really hate it. One of the TIE Fighter expansion packs had a mission where you had to escort Darth Vader's fighter. He would insist on joining in the combat, and could be given orders as any other member of your wing. However, actually giving him orders had very bad results as he didn't appreciate it. The most extreme case is probably the first Rogue Squadron game, in which thirteen of the game's nineteen levels have you escorting, defending, or otherwise having to ensure the continued existence of something.
- Both X-Wing and Rogue Squadron will make you hate the Gallofree GR-75 medium transport.
- Also, the medical Nebulon-B Frigate in the later Rogue Squadron games. Almost without fail, the ship gets assaulted every time it accompanies you on a misson. About the only sane way to handle these missions is to kill everything that moves and let the Frigate save itself.
The game adaptation of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace seemed to have one of these every other level. Many's the time a game-over dialog will pop up saying "Queen Amidala/Jar Jar/Anakin/Padme/the T-14 Hyperdrive Has Been Killed".
- How do you kill a Hyperdrive Engine?
Wing Commander in all its sequels has had escort missions aplenty, though thankfully most of the ships are relatively durable. One exception to that was the Ralari in the Kurasawa 2 mission, in the original game, in which the player had to escort a captured enemy ship. Going strictly by the book, it's theoretically possible to beat this without cheating, but exceedingly frustrating.
- There's a mission in Wing Commander 2 where you have to escort a destroyer through several encounters with Kilrathi Grikath fighter-bombers. These are not infrequently the bane of the player's existence, but in this mission the destroyer being escorted is apt to take out more of them than the player. This is one of the less joystick-tossing escort missions.
- One wingman (Maniac) from the original game was particularly obnoxious, though. He's a hotshot who ignores your orders and has a tendency to fly directly into the crossfire and generally screw up missions. Fortunately, if you "accidentally" shoot him down, the only penalty is that you have to fly the rest of the missions from that arc solo. Not a big loss, given the wingman AI, beyond him giving the enemy someone else to shoot at instead of you or the ship you and he are escorting.
  - In fact, at one point, your CO tells you that if Maniac acts up, you have permission to shoot him down - and advises you to do it with your guns rather than waste missiles.
- Even worse than the skipper mission example above is the first Oxford mission in Wing Commander Privateer, widely acknowledged as the most difficult mission in that game if not the whole series. You see, when you arrive in the mission area, the ship you're supposed to escort (a Drayman freighter, with all the durability of a soap bubble) is already there being attacked by 3-4 light fighters. If you kill the fighters and land before you get the "Mission Complete" radio message, you still fail the mission.
Any mission with Lance Vance in Grand Theft Auto Vice City automatically became an escort mission due to his unerring incompetence. Hell, even Tommy lampshades this when he tells Lance "he always keeps screwing things up"!
A number of missions in the MMORPG City Of Heroes involve finding someone who's been captured by bad guys and leading him back to the mission "door" without getting him killed. (These are a strange counterpoint to the far more numerous missions where you simply have to free the victims from their captors, after which they automatically find their own way out.) One notable variation requires that you find and rescue multiple individuals, lead them to a special location, then defend them against waves of attacking villains for a set amount of time. Conversely, in the game's Expansion Pack City of Villains, there are missions where you have to kidnap somebody, which works essentially the same way.
- The difficulty of escorts in City of Heroes often depends on how big your team is. Because missions scale to the number of teammates you have with you, but the power of the escortee (usually) does not. With less enemies, your ward is more powerful by comparison.
One famous example is the 'Protect Natalya' objective in Goldeneye, where not only do you have to escort the aforementioned character into the Janus base (though she does get to help you with a Cougar Magnum during that phase), but you have to keep her alive by blasting up bad guys while she tries to guide the titular satellite into the earth's atmosphere and stop it from destroying London.
- The first level she appears in is also designed as an escort mission, but thankfully there's an easy way around it: leave Natalya locked in her cell until after you've taken care of all the enemies.
The end of the 'Truth and Reconciliation' level in Halo lampshades this in the sublevel title ("Shut Up And Get Behind Me... Sir"). The scene was less odious than many escort missions, as Captain Keyes is able to fight back and usually has enough sense not to get in the way, but it is still one of the more exasperating fighting sequences in the game.
Most of the scenes in the notorious Daikatana involving the so-called sidekicks were, in effect, escort missions, as losing the sidekick meant restarting the level.
This was mostly played straight in The Matrix: Path of Neo, and the AI was pretty good about it. However, one mission hung a lampshade: one particular escort character just walks along a scripted path, not caring about getting caught in the crossfire, because that character is immune to gunfire and the bullets bounce back at the enemies. Neo comments on this.
Metal Gear Solid 2 contains a segment in which the player has to escort the previous game's main character's best friend's sister (yes, really) through several water-filled levels on piggy-back, as she is phobic of water. The player also has to spray bugs with coolant in order to scare them out of her path, and if she is seen by a guard, she is identified as a "possible hostile," causing an attack squadron to descend on her — she will curl up into a fetal position and scream loudly as she is shot.
Crimson Sea has a notoriously hard level where you escort the President of the planet through an alien-infested factory filled with conveyors, crushing blocks, and inexplicable dead-ends. Most frustratingly, the fat guy in his late fifties is somehow faster than the player.
The first-person shooter Command And Conquer : Renegade features two infamous escort missions where the escortees are always ahead of the player: They wait for him at a waypoint and boldly run to the next one when the player catches up to them. At least in the first case said escortee has Powered Armor and a laser minigun—but you're required to see them through a long level with ample opportunity for them to die by a thousand cuts.
- One GDI mission in the original game has the player not only facing off against a formidable Nod installation, but having to protect the eccentric Dr. Moebius from the enemy while doing so. This in itself wouldn't be so bad (the player can even control the good doctor and keep him out of harm's way), except the orders also extend to protecting the local civilian population in general - civilians whom Nod likes to attack for no adequately explained reason, and failing that, they have an inexplicable habit of wandering into nearby Tiberium fields and dying themselves.
- In Command And Conquer 3, while most of the escort vehicles—such as the MCV—are tough enough to survive, the bonus objectives for the Escort Missions include the words "unharmed." The worst are undoubtedly the Nod Australia missions.
Final Fantasy Tactics Advance also have a few, but the difficulty isn't as high and they actually manage to be useful most of the time. Which is a good thing considering they always count towards your maximum party size.
- A2 has some, too, and while the characters aren't suicidal, they refuse to do anything but move, even if they happen to have a prototype über-sword and the enemy is standing right next to them and attacking every round. They also don't necessarily count towards your maximum party size.
G-Police had plenty of those. You had to escort various vehicles as they ssslllooowly made their way through the city to their destination, apparently oblivious to the clouds of enemy fighters swarming around them (evasive maneuvers? What evasive maneuvers?). The most infuriating thing was that most of the vehicles you had to protect were NPC-controlled version of generic vehicles you'd see all the time in normal traffic, and those sure could go fast.
World Of Warcraft has many, many escort missions, all with various degrees of difficulty. Depending on the specific mission, the NPC may be relatively competent in combat or completely inept; they may handily follow you or charge blindly ahead. Missions may also require a team effort or a strict time limit, or any combination of the above. It's not unusual to find that the escortee is in fact a Ghostly cow. The rescue of Marshall Windsor in the prison of Blackrock Depths was easier to complete if the player's group killed all the bad guys in the prison before ever releasing him.
- However, it was a nice test of ability under pressure to do it with all the enemies still there.
- There was one quest in Felwood, where the caged NPC is inside a demon-infested cave, very close to the entrance. Unfortunately, she chooses to take another 20 minutes to delve into the cave and recover her gear, and THEN you gotta take her back out again. (Thankfully, when that NPC recovers her equipment, she winds up escorting you out of the dungeon.)
- Another fine example is Escape from Durnholde, a dungeon where you go back in time to when Thrall was imprisoned. While Thrall is pretty sturdy for an escort, he rushes headlong into the next group, denying you the careful engagements that are usually required. And makes up 3/4ths of the dungeon, split into three parts. If he dies, you need to redo the current part. But at least you're given several chances before you fail and have to restart the whole thing.
- The Robot Chicken quest in Tanaris is one of these. Yes, you escort a robotic chicken through the desert. Chicken walks straight through monsters. Chicken sounds alert. Chicken keeps going. You, dear player, are stuck fighting mob, after mob, after mob...
- Of particular annoyance is escorting the Druid in Darkshore. Night Elf players know what I'm talking about: The one whom you not only have to defend because he slaps like a sissy, but you have wake him up because he's constantly FALLING ASLEEP on the path. Fortunately he follows you, rather than going off on his own, and if you know where the ambushes are (the first isn't too bad, as it's just a bunch of furbolgs, but the second has a bunch of mages attacking from long range, and all of them are targeting the escortee with fireballs before you can do anything), you can walk around them and avoid them completely.
  - Similarly, there's the goblin in Un'Goro Crater who faints and needs to be revived. While less frustrating than some of the examples here (he follows you, and thus doesn't blindly wander into any and every unfriendly NPC in your path), it's still a pain to be constantly waking him up—especially when you're twenty feet away from the quest-giver.
- Feero Ironhand, the paladin in Ashenvale, is almost equally as annoying to escort. While he (at least) doesn't constantly fall asleep, he's only level 20 and, along the way, has to fight five level 24s that suddenly spawn.
- Akuno has to be escorted out of the Shadow Tomb in Terokkar Forrest, but can't be healed (?!) or buffed during combat. Fortunately, he regenerates health quickly out of combat, wields chain lightning, and he will use it.
- On the other hand, the draenei quest "Ending Their World" is almost a subversion of the traditional Escort Mission. It is considered a group quest, but it's not impossible (although hard) to solo it at its nominal level. Legoso is tough, and it often feels like he's escorting you, not the other way round. He doesn't blindly rush into hordes of enemies, regenerates quickly between battles, and heals himself and you in battle. He can almost clear the way to the final boss alone, and should you die before he attacks the boss, he waits for you to resurrect. And even better than the actual reward is the epic celebration at Blood Watch in the end — the quest is worth doing for this reason alone.
- Yet another example would be poor lost tauren Pao'ka Swiftmountain, who wandered into a wyvern nest in Thousand Needles and needs your help to get out. He's relatively durable, but he's very slow (presumably because he hasn't eaten since he got lost) and the mobs are plentiful.
- And then there's the infuriating test of patience that is "The Absent Minded Prospector." Our escortee in this case has annoyingly low durability, piss poor combat skills, and a lemming's sense of self-preservation — He doesn't even appear to notice that he's wandering around in a Golem infested death-pit, leaving your sorry ass to deal with everything while he pokes his nose in that one tent for the eleventh time. However, the worst is at the end: that fossil that he was supposed to be looking for while you saved his ass? He already sent it off to be examined, and just forgot about it. Yep, you just slogged through that monotonous and difficult escort quest for no reason at all.
In The Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess, you have to escort a comatose prince from a huge, fortified city to a small mountain town's shaman/doctor by fighting off raiders that try to light his wagon on fire (your tornado-spewing boomerang can take care of that). Fortunately, it's a resilient little wagon. Unfortunately, the driver seriously needs a lesson in Instant Win Condition - just run past the bomb, don't swivel off the track.
- Phantom Hourglass has the most annoying escort mission of all time. The escortees can't get hurt, but if a spider shows up, they freeze and scream, attracting the immortal phantoms to murder you. They also freeze if you walk too far away. When you're done, there is a BOSS FIGHT WITH THE ESCORTEES.
  - The worst thing is that they barely even try to act like they're on your side. At least you can use the boss fight to vent your frustrations on them as they richly deserve.
Metroid Prime 3: Corruption has two of these. For the first, Samus has to escort a nuke to the Leviathan while the Pirates try to shoot it down — some of them land with the sole purpose of stalling her. Losing the "escort" is certifiably fatal for Samus; if the fall and storms don't kill her, the nuke will. Once the Pirates are chased off, Samus has five minutes to fix and activate the escape pod before she rides the bomb into the Leviathan.
- The second has Samus escorting GF Demolition Troops to a certain door so they can blow it up and let her through. Naturally, the Pirates will try to gun them down every step of the way. Of course, the GF troops fire back, but still... It's even more jarring that the demolition troops rush into the Pirate filled room BEFORE Samus enters.
Probably the low point of Bioshock for many players was the Proving Grounds, where in order to get to the final boss, you have to escort a Little Sister (a rescued one, without the usual Infant Immortality) through a series of twisting corridors while protecting her from waves of splicers.
- The game is at least polite enough to give you several replacement Little Sisters in the likely event that you fail.
In Pokemon Mystery Dungeon, failure leads to loss of all money and half the items in the inventory – the result every time an escort is killed. Said escort is always level 1, so they only have to be placed in the line of fire once for failure to occur. They will automatically move on any terrain available, often placing them next to you rather than behind you when you face an enemy. If they can fly, they will do so over lava, even though that gives it a burn that will quickly take their Hit Points away. And just to piss you off, if they have a move that doesn’t involve contact with the enemy, they will use it every single step. And even long after that move can't be used any more, the message saying so will continue to annoy you every single step. Thankfully, it is possible to avoid the escort missions for most of the game. Unfortunately, the developers decided to force you to complete two dungeons with a ghost escort – the worst kind since they can wander away through walls and get attacked by other ghosts – in one of the post-credit sequences.
- And if you're doing an escort mission in Mt. Faraway or somewhere similar, many of the enemies have area-effect moves that can and will take out your escort in one hit if they're in the same room as the enemy, even if you've been very careful to keep them behind you at all times.
- The final dungeon (post-credits) of PMD 2 forces you to bring an escort along- Cresselia, a legendary Pokemon. She sticks with you for the final battle, too. This makes finishing the post-credits content of the game nearly intolerable due to her unbelievable stupidity.
Speaking of Pokémon, in the original Pokémon Ranger 1, you are forced to lead a mechanic. And he's scared of bugs. Everytime he sees one he runs to the beginning of the mission. But... you have to guide through a dense jungle! Well, if you're scared of Caterpie and the like, can't you just stay outside the jungle and I'll go and BRING the part to you! And when you get to the part, he pisses off a Gyarados (of all things!).
Fable toys around with this; escort missions are a mandatory part of your Guild Quests, but there's also a steady stream of traveling merchants you can assist in crossing a specific part of Albion for some quick cash (and has no impact on the storyline whatsoever). Also, there are mercenaries you can find later on in the game that you can hire to escort you, to a degree. However, for these latter two examples, there is greater reward in killing them off than to complete the escort; that same path the merchants need to get through houses a demon temple that, if you sacrifice your charges there at a specific time, grants you mucho evil points and some of the best bows in the game. If they're on too low health they won't pay you at the end, if this happens, kill the ungrateful bastards.
Project: Sylpheed is practically overloaded with them. You must protect your HQ ship in nearly every mission, and many other missions assign you to escort other ships as well. Most of the time these ships have enough HP it's not too annoying, but there are exasperating missions where the entire enemy fleet will swarm one ship.
Earthworm Jim has the stage "For Pete's Sake". You have to keep Peter Puppy from getting hurt on his walk through a ridiculously dangerous area. If Peter Puppy does get hurt, he turns into an ugly giant monster, beats you up (dragging the two of you backward in the level for good measure), and then continues marching directly into danger. (Yes, it's a hard level.)
One of the most infamous Escort Missions ever occurred in Phantasy Star Online, where the player could be hired by a scientist named Mome who wanted to study the lifeforms native to one of the sections of the game...which involved dragging him through the entire dungeon, including the boss battle. Mome didn't fight and had about as much endurance as a wet tissue, and his death meant that the mission was a failure and you would have to start all the way from the beginning. Sega acknowledged the players' frustration in Version 2 by having him voluntarily play dead during the boss battle,
- A few also show up in the Spiritual Successor, Phantasy Star Universe. Most aren't as infuriating — helped by the fact that their dying just hurts your end-of-mission rating, instead of ending the mission as a failure — but the one in Chapter 10 of Story Mode is quite annoying, if for the sole reason that one of the escortees is Karen... who was a capable fighter and ally earlier in the game, but is now as fragile as wet tissue paper and barely capable of using her weapons.
Silent Hill 2 - Although Maria usually stays right behind you, the problems may occur when entering another location. Sometimes she appears in an untoward place - f.ex. just between you and a monster. That may cause nervous or impatient player accidentally shoot Maria, meaning game over. I personally haven't any problems with this escort mission, but many people do.
- The second half of 4 is an escort mission, after you find Eileen in the hospital. You can give her weapons to use (like a handbag, a tonfa, or even a riding crop). She's injured and cannot climb ladders because of her broken arm. She cannot die, but your ending will change depending on whether she survives at the end of the game or not. Unfortunately for Henry, Eileen's AI is about as dumb as a post.
- In Homecoming there's two of them. The first one, the girl won't go into the pool filled with monsters until AFTER you've taken care of them, also she really runs quickly enough to escape some of the monsters (unfortunately, sometimes it doesn't work). The second one, the guy has a gun, unlimited ammo, and good enough aim that he can shoot enemies in their weak points and one hit kill them.
  - The gun with the second biggest punch in the game, no less . . .
- Comanche 4 was full of them, often where the escortee was able to get through unharmed but the way was lined with men with heat-seeking rockets. Or they were very hard to see and moved very fast. Or you had to stay within a certain distance or lose automatically.
Mario And Luigi Superstar Saga has you Escorting Princess Peach through Teehee Valley to Little Fungitown. You have to keep her onscreen at all times, make sure there are no enemies heading towards her, and work quickly to open the gate at each section of the valley. If you don't do one of the first two, she gets kidnapped. You must rescue her and try again (the gates reset themselves, making this even more annoying), because the next boss fight won't start if you go through the valley yourself.
Crash Twinsanity includes two Doc Amock sequences, wherein Dr. Cortex is forced to run down a preset path (while being harassed by bees, their nest and a honey-hungry bear the first time around, and by Crash's evil duplicate in the second), while Crash must take another path whilst disabling the hazards on Cortex's route. The sequences were generally well accepted, thanks to its exhibition of the game's excellent Cortex-abuse-centric humour.
Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast has one level where you need an R5 unit to survive long enough to open two doors. The droid stops once, before both doors, and after that will not change direction, pause, slow down, or do anything that suggests that it has a sense of self-preservation. Oh, and the hallway between the two doors has five or six snipers and enough trip-laser mines to blow the droid away ten times over.
- Jedi Outcast also features brief sections in a level where you have to protect Lando. At the end, it's more of a general defense mission, but to start with you're running around the map together.
- Inverted in Academy, at one point Kyle Katarn joins you on a mission where he makes short work of groups of Hazard Troopers that take a LOT of effort for the player to kill.
Mech Warrior 2 features one of the more annoying examples. You had to escort a dude in a hoverlimo to the opera. Through a war zone. Believe it or not, this half-made sense in the game, as the Clans tend to limit fire only to actual battles and deliberately avoid places of art. And the mission briefing hung a lampshade on it, with the final line being, "[Character] loves the opera." So much that he would apparently go in a tiny unarmed and fragile vehicle through a war zone escorted by a single Mech. It also had an escort mission where you had to guide a prototype Tarantula mech to waiting dropships.
- Mechwarrior 2 Mercenaries had a mission where the player was tasked with babysitting a prince (or something) through what is described as a gimmie mission to get the guy some basic combat experience. He's attacked by assassins, of course, and, even better, proves to be a prototype Leeroy Jenkins, blindly charging at heavily armed enemies while shouting incoherently and shooting everything on the map that isn't trying to kill him.
Die Hard: Nakatomi Plaza. Try to protect Argyle as he drives through the parking garage, and protect hostages in the upper floors.
The last level of Psychonauts is part Escort Mission and part Rise To The Challenge level. Naturally, it isn't too popular.
- There is also a very brief, very easy tutorial Escort Mission in the very first mental level of the game. It involves guiding another kid through a minefield, complicated by the fact that he will always walk right towards you in a straight line regardless of what's inbetween, and that he frequently panics and has to be reassured to stop him running over a mine.
  - ...then just walk at the same pace he moves? It worked for me.
The Caverns of Hope level in Ecco The Dolphin: Defender of the Future had an Escort Mission, which thankfully wasn't all that tough, but still fairly annoying. That green Outcast dolphin is fairly good at keeping your pace, but for being a part of the Resistance, which is supposed to be the only thing standing in the way of those ugly Clan dolphins, he's kind of a wimp. His job is to guide you to the end of the level, and your job is to make sure he and those annoying Clan guards don't come within ten feet of each other. If one gets near him, he'll squeal and try to go back to where he came from, and you have to track him down and sonar him to get him back to the task at hand.
- The original series had a few of these as well, with guiding dolphins and baby orca back to their podmates. For the most part these aren't too bad - the NPCs can't be harmed and can't drown, either - and while recommended for powerups are optional in the original Ecco the Dolphin... however, the baby orca hunt in hard mode of Tides of Time approaches Scrappy Level proportions due to the sheer number of lost calves.
Flash Back has the obligatory escort mission in the second level. It's not so bad; the NPC simply walks forward slowly, so this feels more like a timed mission than anything else.
Odd World: Abe's Oddyssey and Abe's Exoddus are based upon rescuing literally hundreds of your pals, which means you have to escort them to the nearest teleporter. At least they do what you say, even if they are rather dumb about it (and, in some cases, angry, blind or drunk).
The Mega Man Zero series has a few escort missions. Most of them don't allow the escortee to die, but you always lose rank points for any damage they take. The most infuriating is a desert rescue in the first Zero game — you have to make it across the desert, defeat a boss, and then bring an injured Reploid back (all the minor enemies having respawned in the meantime). If he takes more than one or two hits, kiss that S-rank goodbye. The only saving grace of this mission is that he's immune to Zero's own weapons, so you can stand "on top" of him swinging the saber and create a kind of force field. The injured ally CAN die if you become careless enough.
Jeanne D'Arc, a strategy game, only has one escort mission. Unfortunately, it is quite frustrating. The character you are escorting has the worst armor and no weapons. He also follows a preset path, which puts him in line with an archer that will instantly kill him with one shot. If you do not rush your units to kill the archer before he gets there, it is basically impossible.
- There is a way to cheat in this mission. Move your characters so that his preset path is blocked, forcing him to move much slower. This gives you more time to intercept things.
The Jump Ultimate Stars protect missions: Imagine a 2D Super Smash Bros. Imagine having a defenseless 'ally' who stands still and dies in a single hit. Imagine having at least two enemies focused on beating the crap out of him from every angle, and starting on either side of him. Imagine having to protect that character for at least 30 seconds to clear that stage and up to a minute to unlock the bonuses and finish the game 100%. It was quite common for the mission to end before the first second was even over.
In Koei's Dynasty Warriors and Samurai Warriors games, you will fail the mission if your commander dies. Some iterations of the franchise, such as Dynasty Warriors 3, avert this trope - commanders will only engage in battle if they are attacked or if it's just you and them left on the stage. In others, like Warriors Orochi, the commander will throw themselves at every enemy general on the map - even Lu Bu - with reckless abandon, turning the game into a series of Escort Missions.
- Any stage where a NPC has to reach an "escape point" (usually the vicinity of one of the game's reinforcement-mook spawn points) or has to be escorted to the location of an event trigger (most likely a fire attack), or even just has to be picked up along the way.
- Guan Yu's Escape in Dynasty Warriors 3, 4, and 5 is the Dynasty Warriors series' pure Escort Mission, right out of the book.
- There is one level in Dynasty warriors 3 where your commander decides to close in on the enemy. He'll stay back and avoid the front lines, BY STANDING IN A POISONOUS SWAMP, WHICH SLOWLY DRAINS HIS HEALTH.
- Dynasty Warriors Gundam features several missions requiring you to escort another character to an escape point, and many others where you can't allow them to be shot down. These usually tend to be annoying rather than difficult, as the NP Cs aren't so much suicidal as they are more likely to get bogged down clearing out Every. Single. Mook. in the field. The one exception: when a giant mecha cuts you off, your ally is prone to pulling a Leeroy Jenkins no matter how many times he or she gets smacked down by a Beam Spam.
- [Verb] Lady Cai Wenji in Dynasty Warriors 6 Empires. A series of three escort missions with the same frail escortee. does not help that at one point, she gets ambushed by at least 3 different officers (pulled at random) and numerous mooks. bringing along AI allies is NOT a good idea, as it just tends to INCREASE the number of named mooks that appear (bringing along 2P, though, is another story)
  - The one good thing about Lady Cai Wenji is that there's only one of her, and she does tend to haul ass across the field. Unlike the "deliver supplies" missions, in which two separate groups of villagers (an unholy combination of Suicidal Chipmunk since they always run into the bases where enemies respawn, AND wet tissue) are approaching the escape point from opposite sides of the field. Unless you plan the mission well, you'll end up running back and forth frantically trying to prevent them from getting killed. Did I mention that if either one of them dies the mission fails? And that they're frequently ambushed by the Dynasty Warriors equivalent of Goddamned Bats? Scrappy Level doesn't begin to cover it.
- Some commanders are better than others about not getting in your way, and usually there's some historical precidence as well, most notably Ma Su. Yuan Shao is probably the worst of the bunch though, since in one battle he just stands there while Lu Bu is coming after him. Luckily, Gonsun Zan and Sun Jian can probably hold Lu Bu off long enough for you and Cao Cao to go around and win the battle.
- In Dynasty Warriors 6, playing Chang Ban on the Shu side requires that you escort at least one group of defenseless peasants to the docks. Your target for One Hundred Percent Completion is to escort all four groups of defenseless peasants to the docks, and naturally, they're all way the hell on opposite sides of the field from each other and the terrain is a bitch to navigate.
Many in Guild Wars; though despite the sheer number of them during the subsequent chapters and expansion, everyone remembers Prince Rurik's "famous" charges. There's a reason why he's known as Captain Suicide, y'know.
- Finally fixed in Guild Wars: Eye of the North; whenever you are accompanied by NPCs in a dungeon or on a mission they regularly get hacked down without mercy—but automatically resurrect with no ill effects as soon as the area is clear of enemies.
- Of special note are several missions where you must escort an NPC that will charge heedlessly into battle shouting his name, "Kiiiiillroooooy Stooooonekiiiiin!!". Not only is the character a hilarious homage to the Leeroy Jenkins video, but his shout is also a gamebreaking buff that cuts your skill costs and cooldowns in half.
The PC version of Assassins Creed had missions where you had to escort a friendly NPC to the edge of town and would inevitably be attacked once or twice along the way. As if it wasn't bad enough that the inclusion of these missions was being promoted as the "Director's Cut," the NPC will walk at a pace which is naturally faster than your walking speed, but of course slower than your running speed.
The Roguelike Elona grants the ability to the player to various escort quests, which are also timed missions. Most of the time this is no problem as most escortees are solid enough to survive while you kill the various random encounters that appear on the world map, and sometimes even hep you do so. However there is a special case: the Random Number God can sometimes decide that the person you need to escort is a 'Kamikaze Samurai', an ally whose only attack was to charge and blow himself up on an enemy. Good luck on not getting any random encounter!
- This has actually been solved in the latest patch.
The final level of Aqua Nox was an escort mission in which all of the enemies use stun weapons. You could spend upwards of 30 minutes waiting for the transports to leave without realising that they were already disabled and you had failed.
One optional early-game quest in Ancient Domains of Mystery is to find the Cute Puppy and bring it back the the Little Girl in Terinyo. Naturally, the puppy has managed to find its way to the bottom of the most difficult dungeon in the area. Also, the puppy dies automatically after a few days of in-game time. There's a reason it's sometimes called "Kenny" by the community.
The Witcher has some of these. Incidentally, some of the characters you have to escort turn out to be potential bedmates.
Although it may be not be such a 'traditional' escort mission, each world in Billy Hatcher And The Giant Egg starts with one of these. Sure, you may be actually (indirectly) controlling the Elder's egg, and it may not be so bad at first.......but just wait until you get to Blizzard Castle and onwards.
The mobile HQ in Starscape has firepower and health comparable (if not superior) to the player's ship, but it's so big and slow that it doesn't even bother trying to dodge enemy fire. It also has problems with swarms of weak enemies, as all five guns target the same enemy at the same time.
In Star Craft, almost every level in the campaign has some hero(es) that you have to keep alive. They can be used as middling combat units, in a traditional Escort Mission mold, but the risk of losing the mission upon their death far outweighs the benefits of their strength, making them Cool But Inefficient. This was one of the reasons Blizzard made hero units resurrectable in Warcraft III.
- There are also several missions that involve taking one of the weakest units to a certain area - which is of course, heavily guarded - in order to obtain or drop off a Mac Guffin.
The Ace Combat series frequently requires the player to escort allied aircraft, usually bombers or transports. Occasionally, you're required to protect civilians, ground forces, or ships. Just as often, you make the enemy fail their escort mission.
The old text-based The Hobbit computer game required Bilbo to ensure Thorin's survival (and for maximum points, Gandalf's) until everyone returned to Bilbo's cottage. Odd in that both characters are stronger and more capable than Bilbo, though frequently weaker than some of the more dangerous monsters. Fortunately, Thorin (who's critical to opening the side door to Smaug's lair) is programmed not to wander off the way Gandalf does—unless Bilbo is wearing the Ring, and thus invisible. Both characters are also prone to tell Bilbo "No" when asked to do important things like protect him from orcs or help him out of a window he's too short to reach. Fortunately they don't attack powerful enemies much, but are often captured by both orcs and elves and thus out of reach when needed.
God of War II had one very brief Escort Mission in the Temple of the Fates, where Kratos has to forcibly drag a translator about 100 feet to an inscription, protecting him en route and while he reads. Of course, after you take care of all the enemies, Kratos immediately kills the translator by bashing his head into the altar (it's required, though; the inscription ends with the reader offering himself as a sacrifice to prove the subject's worthiness).
- The original God Of War had a particularly sadistic take on it, as the escortee was a man trapped in a cage, and you were pushing him up a slope to burn him alive as a human sacrifice. He begs for his life the entire time you're pushing him. Even Kratos seems unhappy with what he's going to do.
  - This scene was unfortunately Bowdlerized in the European version by replacing the man with a regular undead enemy, with no explanation why it was even in the cage.
- God Of War has a more notable escort mission in the form of the second stage of the final boss, where you must protect a stationary target from a horde of enemies.
Many, many, many examples from Descent: Freespace and its sequel, Freespace 2, babysitting all sorts of stuff, from transports packed with evacuees to freighters carrying exotic weapons prototypes to freshly-captured alien warships to huge spacegoing aircraft carrier/battleship hybrids.
- This is one of the first games where AI ships competently could shoot down bombs and defended themselves, making them actually viable combatants.
- One particular mission sticks out in the mind of this Troper. You're required to escort your carrier ship through an asteroid field, taking out asteroids along the way. You have yourself and maybe one or two other fighters to help you. You'd think that the carrier would launch every fighter they have, as well as man every turret, but it's basically up to you and your wingmen.
You may want to keep one of your earlier saved games in Infinite Undiscovery around, because there's an inverted Escort Mission near the beginning of the game, where you are rendered completely unable to attack due to carrying an injured companion, and the AI must escort you to your destination. Too bad they only escort you halfway to your destination. Then they all leave and you're stuck having to run through the last area totally helpless.
Team Fortress 2 "Payload" mode has one team have to lead a minecart carrying a bomb through a predetermined path to the other team's base. However, it moves slowly, and only moves when a member of the team pushing it is nearby. If no one pushes it for 30 seconds, it goes back. However, it's the escorter that finds themselves being shot at, and if the player is on the other team, the goal is to get the escort mission to fail. The bomb itself it completely invulnerable.
- Some Team Fortress servers have the "Spy Crab Migration" mission, where one team is made up of Spies who must use the Spy Crab glitch (crouching and looking up with the disguise kit open) to make it to the other side of the field, and the other teams is full of Huntsman-weilding Snipers whose job it is to prevent the same. Some maps make this harder for one side or another by adding instant death traps (like high voltage power lines for the Spy Crabs, or the Train of Death for the Snipers).
- Team Fortress Classic has an oft-overlooked gamemode called Hunted, wherein one player is the 'civilian' (an utterly useless class whose weapon is an umbrella) and the defending team (with a limited class selection) must protect him against the offending team, which is made up of snipers.
- Quake Team Fortress had similar custom maps. One in particular featured three teams: one full of civilians with axes trying to get to the other side of the map before time ran out, one team of two people armed with explosives trying to kill all the civilians, and one team of two people trying to help the civilians by killing the second team. The civilians usually had unlimited respawns, but always had very low health. It was messy.
Doom 3. You have to escort a scientist carrying a lamp through the demon-infested darkness. You can manage it easily enough without him; he just provides another source of light in a pitch dark area. If push comes to shove you can use your flashlight to spot enemies and your insticts to guess where they are once you switch to your gun. Helpfully, the enemies in question are mostly Imps, who throw fireballs around, which light things up. On the other hand, the game also has Sentry Bots, powerful little buggers who escort you through a few sections of the game. The one time they might actually die, you need to get them to the end of the area anyway and can make more.
Warzone2100's Beta Campaign. There is a mission where you have to prevent the Collective's Commander from escaping from the ports where he starts at to the opposite edge of the map. The AI has a convoy of heavy units to escort him, an elaborate and well-defended fortress which he can retreat to, and strong air cover from a squadron of VTOL strike fighters. But the Collective Commander is a complete moron who panics at the first hint of trouble and clumsily rams into buildings and defensive structures that were meant to protect him, getting stuck and getting killed. As of the latest release, his air cover and fortress are the only things that can really save him from himself.
Boom Blox has the Mitten Kittens levels near the end of adventure mode. In the first, you have to deal with shooting every enemy around them as they slowly walk towards a giant pumpkin. In the second? One walks slowly forward while a million grim reapers spawn. You have to defend them by putting blocks in the way. Blocks that the fucking kitten will attack, no matter how out of the way they are. Goddammit.
In Time Splitters: Future Perfect, every level after the first has someone you have to keep alive. Whether its an original character or a past/future version of yourself. Can someone say "fuck THE HOODED MAN - 2401 level"?
- Co-op mode allows the escorted character to be played by player 2. Finally, someone who doesn't run in your line of fire!
Most of Dragon Ball Origins has Goku escorting Bulma through the levels. Since she can't jump, it's entirely possible that Goku can easily reach the end of the level himself, with most of the challenge being pushing blocks or opening the doors that will let Bulma reach the end, too. And while she has a small handgun for combat as well as an assortment of special weapons, in the later levels, almost all of the enemies require one of Goku's special moves to damage, leaving Bulma unable to do much to them by herself. And you lose if she dies.
Lord Of The Rings Online also has a bunch of those, some with actually useful NP Cs, others... less so. One of the most notorious is an optional quest in the dungeon Garth Agarwen, where the NPC has to be followed closely through doors closing behind her, into snake pits (the game lacks Ao E) and as an additional Bug Bonus, has to be cashed in before logging out or you will lose the quest.
In Perfect World, high levels generally "escort" lower levels through their dungeons. Just a bit of friendly advice for you... If you're a high-level Axe Blademaster on a Pv P server, and you're helping somebody level 30 and up, don't use Heaven's Flame.
Champions Online has its fair share of escorts, some more aggravating than others. Some escortees can defend themselves reasonably well, others cower at the sight of villains but at least don't go out of their way to get in a fight... then there's the police officer in Millenium City who insists on chasing down every enemy within 50 feet of his patrol route.
In the second level of Soldier Of Fortune II: Double Helix, you have to escort Dr. Ivanovich out of the hotel. He dies very quickly, and if that happens, it's an instant Game Over.
Left 4 Dead 2 inverts this and plays it straight at the same time for getting cola to the gun shop owner so he can clear a path for you. If you get the cola, you are escorted by your team mates as they protect you from the infected rushing in to attack. If someone else gets the cola, you have to protect them. The roles can easily switch if someone fumbles the cola or passes it to someone else.
Every once in a while in New Super Mario Bros. Wii, a toad icon will appear at a level you have already beaten. If you retry that level without any other players, you get to try to escort a toad retainer across the level for an extra 1-up or three and an extra mushroom house.

Exceptions

Cave Story has a scene where your escort has a better weapon than you, and is invulnerable. The AI, while a bit random, isn't too bad either.
The aforementioned Resident Evil 4: not only is Ashley smart enough to get out of your line of fire, and not only can you order her to stay back while you go ahead and clean out the enemies, the game even provides the occasional place to hide her from view entirely until such time as the coast is clear. Capcom seems to have spent some time making sure having her around wouldn't cause players to throw things at the TV.
- There is even in the PS 2/ Wii versions of the game a suit of armor for Ashley as an alternate outfit - this renders her invulnerable to bullet fire and makes her impossible for the enemies to carry off which turns her into an amazing trap (not like that) for your enemies. If you're getting mobbed, put her in the center of a room and your back against a wall. They'll pick her up and immediately fall over which won't stop them from trying while you slowly pick them off.
Ico, whose entire premise is basically an Escort Mission. The player is seldom if ever attacked directly, but usually has ample time to rescue the Distressed Damsel if she comes under attack, and has the option to actually drag her along by the hand if the situation demands it.
Defanged unconvincingly in Neverwinter Nights 2. When the main quest requires that you escort an NPC, said NPC will gleefully engage any enemies in combat, quite beyond your control. However, they can't actually die (or "fall unconscious," as it is); some even have an infinite supply of healing potions. It's a testament to just how annoying the Escort Mission is that you won't care that this is unrealistic.
- The quest My sister, the rebel proves the exception to the exception, as Lisbet can and indeed does die if you're not careful. And she stays dead, too.
  - Although in this case it's mitigated somewhat by the fact that you actually can order her to stay put while you clear out each room.
The protectees in Half Life tended to be reasonably close to where you need to take them and you often got a chance to clear out the area before you even met them; all NPCs could be told to stay put while you went on ahead — and, in the case of the skittish scientists, occasionally did so whether you wanted them to or not ("I refuse to take another step!") In the expansion Half-Life: Opposing Force and from Half-Life 2 on, mission-critical characters (besides the scientists in Opposing Force) were often more than capable of defending themselves.
- The Counter-Strike mod features a couple of "rescue" maps, where one of the counter-terrorist team's players was a VIP armed with just a puny little gun, and the rest of them were his escort. As a multiplayer-only game, the VIP's intelligence or stupidity depends on whether the VIP player is a skilled player, a Noob, or God forbid, a Leeroy Jenkins. Likewise, in the hostage rescue maps, the CTs can ask the hostages to stay where they are before entering a room.
- Half-Life 2 Episode 1 and 2 both pair the player off with Alyx Vance, a NPC sidekick who is Nigh Invulnerable. She can still be killed if the player makes absolutely no attempt to fight the enemy at all (or inadvertently blunders too far away from her, given the difference in firepower between her and Gordon Freeman). She hangs back or is otherwise separated from the player for large boss battles.
  - Episode 1 is noteworthy for containing a dark, underground level with, at least to begin with, very little ammunition for the player to use (Alyx, of course, needs no ammo)...which means that you spend the first half of the level illuminating enemies with your flashlight so Alyx can shoot them. In other words, it's an Escort Mission where you are The Load.
  - I, for one, felt like most of the HL2 canon seems to be an escort mission where you are being escorted, mostly because Alyx tends to go off quite happily defending herself and doing all sorts of awesome stuff without you.
In Freelancer, at least two missions are openly presented as Escort Missions, and your unarmed sidekicks always manage to get caught in your fights, usually against entire wings of fighters. Fortunately, the AI is competent enough to let them have a chance.
In The Thing, various levels had one or more characters that you have to keep alive. This is made slightly easier by the fact that you can give them spare guns/ammunition, which they will use.
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion contains several rescue missions, but only two where the NPC cannot be told to hang back. And in one of those two, you can simply ignore the NPC until you clear the place out. A large majority of these missions are Fighters Guild for some reason.
- Which is a great improvement over the predecessor Morrowind, where escort missions have been likened to suicide watch: if you get within sight of a hostile, the (usually unarmed, unarmored) person you are escorting will charge to the attack.
- In one early Mages' Guild assignment for Morrowind, you're likely better off standing back and letting your charge do all the fighting - he's a wizard of modest power who starts blasting away at any baddies he sees, is more than capable of killing most threats, and doesn't care if you're in the way.
  - Both Morrowind and Oblivion had monsters that would level with your character, so a high-level character exploring a certain dungeon would encounter, say, liches and demonic dinosaurs, whereas a lower-level character would find nothing but giant rats. Most escorted NP Cs, in contrast, had fixed levels.
- Lampshaded in a Mage's Guild mission where you meet someone who tells you to follow him and then charges straight into a deadly trap. You don't fail the mission, it's just there for color. (Red, mostly.)
- Daggerfall escort missions were very controllable due to the limitations of the game engine - your escort's mug appeared in the upper corner of your screen and he went wherever your character went until the time limit was up. The only way to kill the escort was to die yourself.
  - However, the most famous escort mission of any The Elder Scrolls game occurs when the Fighters' Guild sends you to help someone get somewhere and you fail. What starts as a simple escort mission turns into a no-time-limit political conspiracy minor story that can net the player a constant flow of resources until completed.
Metal Gear Solid 3 forced Snake to protect EVA for a while, but she had a gun on her, and she was pretty good about staying behind him.
- If you don't feel like dealing with her at all, you can also tranquilize EVA, take out all the sentries, and just drag her to safety.
In Metal Gear Solid 2, towards the end, Raiden and Snake go for a last charge down the halls of Arsenal, killing everything. Either Snake or Raiden's death causes a game over. On easy difficulty levels Snake brings an M4 and effortlessly slaughters everyone under his own steam, leaving Raiden with not a lot to do other than pick up boxes of ammo and watch. On hard difficulty levels, Snake only brings a handgun and is a liability, requiring constant protection – and on Extreme he's an outright moron, standing perfectly still while the enemy soldiers hit him with their swords. Raiden can either encircle him, deflecting bullets and chopping up anyone who approaches, or knock him out and drag his unconscious body through the level.
Super Robot Wars: Original Generation series was pretty good about Escort Missions. Almost always, the people you had to keep alive were fairly powerful and under your direct control. Sometimes, though, they had to pass through a heavily fortified position with multiple enemies aiming for them, without taking a single hit. This was alleviated, though, by incredible dodging skills.
- However, there's one mission in the second game where you have to guide an NPC transport ship carrying a prototype mecha through a literal swarm of enemies. The ship has only average HP and defenses, never defends itself (despite being listed as carrying missiles on-board), can't dodge for beans, and isn't controllable. The ship itself can take six or seven hits before going down, but that's considerably less useful when there are twenty or so enemies aiming for it at once. Adding to the dilemma is that, if you want the Skill Point for this stage, you can't even let the thing get SCRATCHED. The only way to achieve this is to send all of your mechs as far forward into the enemy as possible, causing them to attack you instead of the transport. Oh, but if any of THEM die, you fail also.
- Super Robot Wars 3 pulls this straight with a kick in the balls, where you have to keep Ryune alive while she's surrounded by enemies... And she will attack you. The version of that battle in the first OG game is far more merciful: You don't have to protect her, and if she dies, she just instantly regains her full health. Oh, and she doesn't attack you until after the bad guys are all gone.
Urban Chaos: Riot Response sits somewhere in the middle. Partners in need of rescue will be killed in short order unless you help them; but once they are saved they'll stick close to you, enemies don't consider them top priority, and if armed they'll provide cover fire for you.
In S.T.A.L.K.E.R., you have to escort a scientist through an enemy infested area to a transition area. While he does lead, you have three major advantages than most other games: 1. He knows how to take cover. 2. You can give him an assault rifle to upgrade his pistol. and 3. He is wearing one of the best armor suits in the game.
Various Fire Emblem missions are based around protecting key units. Most of the time, you can have one of your more-armored party members go over and "rescue" them — removing the protected unit from the map as long as their carrier survives.
- An odd case in FE 10 (Radiant Dawn): there's a level in the game where you have to keep two civilians protected, but one of these civilians has much higher HP and defense than anyone on your team at that point. Even though he's unarmed, he can block enemies and generally makes the chapter easier than if he weren't there at all. Oh, and you can let them die with only the loss of some bonus exp.
- Sometimes (especially in the GBA games) the NPC you're supposed to protect is in a well fortified location, or is so insanely overpowered it can defeat the enemy by itself. Feel free to get xp though.
- Another Fire Emblem 10 example; in the ninth chapter of the game, you go up against Complete Monster Jarod and two cronies, except you can only use Micaiah - Jarod having the right equipment and stats to probably one-shot her. However, during the cutscene, the Black Kni ght appears, while dozens of enemies cover the map; while it is (in theory) an escort mission in which the Black Knight kills all of the enemies, since all of the enemy units can still kill Micaiah in one or two hits, it isn't that hard - Micaiah can easily reach Level 20 just from this map, and she can easily dodge most of the enemy attacks.
The Nintendo Wars series has missions in the campaign modes revolving around either protecting or destroying key units. The fact that the units follow your orders (only moving and attacking when you order them to) rather than moving around dumbly makes this a lot more tolerable.
- In Advance Wars: Days of Ruin, they tend to be AI-controlled, although the AI is smart enough not to rush to their doom.
  - Except for a certain Heroic Sacrifice, where you could've done the mission more easily if you had kept control of the megatank.
- In most Battalion Wars missions, you have to capture some enemy point. This requires you to have at least one infantry unit alive. Since you can command said units — Attack mode, Sentry Mode, and Follow — this is a lot easier than it sounds.
In Evil Dead: Regeneration, Ash's half-demon midget sidekick Sam generally makes himself useful by weakening enemies - when he isn't being used to collect Plot Coupons. Then you have to keep him from being killed before feeding enough Plot Coupons to the demon blocking your way until it goes to sleep.
In Warcraft III, there are some escort missions, but the escortees are caravans who are Ready to Rumble. Once, it is Tauren, who are their melee units and better than you, and the other time is Blood Elves, who can hold off attackers while you sweep the area ahead without getting ahead of you.
- The expansion also features the reverse in the undead campaign, you need to stop human caravans from escaping into the mountains at various key positions.
In the Conker's Bad Fur Day mission "Saving Private Rodent", Rodent wears a completely impenetrable koopa shell-like suit, making him effectively immortal - he actually protects you, as you'd be killed by the carpet-bombing destroying the area without taking cover behind him.
In the Diamond and Pearl versions of Pokémon, there are a few missions where you escort a fellow trainer. These trainers heal your and their Pokémon after every battle, are moderately helpful in battle (in particular, you keep getting attacked by two opposing trainers at once, and having an ally makes it closer to fair), and don't pass out and cause a Game Over when their Pokémon faint. Completing one of these missions nets you the ability to partner up with the trainer again in the Battle Tower.
Avoided in First Encounter Assault Recon, where the Point Man must escort Alice Wade to a helicopter pickup on the rooftop. Alice is invincible, always stays behind the Point Man, and when they ride up the elevator, she stays inside the elevator during the subsequent ambushes. The ambushes themselves can be completely avoided by simply staying inside the elevator, as the Replica soldiers won't throw grenades into it and will stay back behind cover until the doors close and the elevator continues on.
- Also viciously averted in Project Origin, where at first glance it looks like you're going to be stuck escorting Terry Halford to safety. Then a Replica Assassin decapitates him.
Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings has a large number of them, with a fair number of AI types. The developers seem to have known how much gamers hate these missions, the ones with suicidal allies have weak enemies.
In The Suffering, Torque has the opportunity to engage in a few of these. The escortees are usually (but not always) armed, reasonably tough, and able to defend themselves pretty well. Torque can simply gun them down to skip the mission, but this seriously dings his Karma Meter - allowing them to die via monster does not change the Karma Meter, and completing the mission increases it.
In the Shadowrun game for the Sega Genesis, the client you escort won't even be attacked by enemies, they go after you instead. These missions were near identical to carry a package missions except that they can get caught up in area of effect attacks like grenades or explosive fireballs.
Portal's world-famous Companion Cube is the star of an escort mission that can't actually be solved without it (or him. One of the side effects of Enrichment Center testing is believing inanimate objects to be alive, after all.) The Cube is even used as a bullet shield in some parts of the level, and can't actually be destroyed at all. except in the incinerator at the end, into which the player is required to throw him.
In the Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare mission "Hunted," the informant Nikolai will have to be escorted through a wilderness; fortunately, he's good enough at defending himself. In the "One Shot, One Kill" mission an injured Captain's support fire is apparently quite effective... however, he can be killed, and he is immobile; he can't move around unless you carry him, leaving you unable to do anything except walk around (no sprinting) and putting him down.
- Additionally, there's the mission where you "escort" Soap's team... at the controls of an AC-130 gunship.
Happens in Zone Of The Enders: The 2nd Runner. Con: You have to protect a soldier's mech, meant to help out in a battle later, that for whatever stupid reason, can't fight back, on top on YOU having carry it all the way to its destination. Pro: You can heal said mech by carrying it, making said mission a cakewalk, on top of being able to swing him like a bat and even FLING him at your enemies. FUN.
- Later, you actually have to escourt an entire army, while taking down hundreds of enemy mechs. Thankfully, you have the hero of the first game to help out.
- Also, said army can also fight against BAHRAM well enough, although they're pretty well outnumbered.
The PC port of the game James Bond 007: Nightfire. The player must protect Mayhew, an unarmed man, but he's smart enough to stay behind you and not move on until an area is cleared.
In a game as hard as Jak II, the number of difficult escort missions is surprisingly set squarely at 1. The hardest escort mission in the game involves escorting yourself as a kid though the city, made difficult by the automatic movement of the escort NPC and his completely understandable lack of intelligence. All other escorts are either carried by vehicle or armed with weaponry, allowing them to hold their own for a long enough period for you to do what you have to do, whether it be killing enemies or solving a door puzzle.
Subverted in the Tabletop RPG Paranoia adventure Me and My Shadow, Mark IV, where the players have to escort an enormous cybernetic combat tank. The problem the players face is not so much to protect Mark IV as to keep themselves from being crushed between various potent assaults and Mark IV's Nigh Invulnerability.
World In Conflict has an interesting inversion. In one mission, you only initially have command of a small force consisting of light units and repair units. Later on, you hook up with another allied force under AI control which has much heavier weaponry able to stave off Russian assaults. A good portion of the rest of the mission involves you relying on the AI to protect your vulnerable units while you keep the AI's units repaired and ready to fight.
Grand Theft Auto IV has some missions where you're accompanied by a few partners in crime. All three of Patrick McReary's missions, for example, have him accompanying you, and if he dies, you fail. While this can occasionally be a recipe for annoyance because Patrick tends to charge headlong into enemy fire, he can take quite a bit of damage (more than you can, in fact), and helps to draw the enemies' fire, letting you pick off enemies and cops without getting shot at as much. He's an expert at using the game's cover system (one case where the computer actually cheats in your favor), and is packing serious heat of his own, meaning he'll be able to take out enemies as fast as you can. Another case of the Escort Mission adding a slight bit of difficulty to the game without being overly frustrating, and sometimes actually being helpful.
- Also, any mission where Little Jacob joins you. The situations feel similar to Patrick's missions, except he never charges into certain death, usually advancing as you do, and it somehow feels like he's the one escorting you than you escorting him.
- GTA4 also includes a Co-Op multiplayer mode called "Hangman's NOOSE," which requires the team to escort an NPC mafia boss to safety. Because the boss is somewhat intelligent, the mission is short, and the case rewards are very high, this might be one of the few escort missions on this list that players seek out and play repeatedly.
- You can invert the situation a bit after you become friendly with Dwayne, in that you can call some guys to escort you.
Some of the Spider-Man games have variants on this trope, where the player must protect an NPC from a supervillain. In Ultimate Spider-Man, for example, Venom must keep Electro from frying an unconscious Spider-Man, made more bearable by the fact that Spidey's unconscious, and won't do anything stupid, so it'll be only your fault if you let him get roasted alive. The first Spider-Man game for the Playstation requires Spider-Man to protect J. Jonah Jameson from a rampaging Scorpion, but fortunately Jameson has the sense to run like hell while the player stalls the Scorpion.
Deus Ex has an escort mission. It's optional (though your brother will die if you don't do it), your charge has a good amount of health, competence, and firepower, and if you get killed between that point and the next level, you're captured and brought to the next level instead of getting Game Over.
- Actually, the person you're escorting is invincible, and it's a useful tactic to let him take out the ambush just outside his door while you hide in the cupboard. Also, regardless of your actions later on, you'll be captured by UNATCO and taken to HQ to be interrogated.
- The annoying thing about this mission is that the escortee will vanish at some point, and you have to play the next level before you find out if the game registered the mission as success or as failure (or not register at all, which makes the level unwinnable).
- It's not an escort mission, it's just misunderstood: If you go through the window at any time, he dies. If you don't, he doesn't. You can keep him alive by dying instantly if you want.
Earth Bound: Just as the plot begins, Ness must escort his neighbors and an alien home. The alien, however, is exponentially stronger than then-level-1 Ness, and in fact does most of the fighting for you during the mission. He renders the 3 humans temporarily immune to PSI attacks as well, so you're invincible against the mini-boss, too.
Crysis. The main plot of the first half of the game requires you to rescue several hostages, who are escorted away by allies arriving Just In Time. Any allies you have will stay well away from any fighting and let you do all the work.
The escort missions in Joseph Hewitt's mecha roguelike Gear Head have you using your mecha to protect a transport truck from raiders as it drives along a short road. Unfortunately, as you progress in the game, all your opponents become stronger, greatly increasing the range, accuracy and power of their attacks. As a result, the defenseless truck will generally be targeted with a barrage of powerful, expensive, area-affecting missiles before you can even spot the raiders' mecha, inevitably being destroyed by the first hit. Luckily, these missions are all optional.
In Jets'n'Guns, you are led to believe that a certain stage will be an escort mission... but the escortees are merely background elements.
During one level of The Force Unleashed you are told to protect a Jedi from Imperials at all costs. Things look bad. He's old. He's blind. This is surely going to be a hard mission right? Wrong! He's a goddamned Jedi! What kind of Jedi can't take care of himself?
- The game can bug out during that mission: halfway through the old man forgets how to walk. He'll still kick the ass of anything that gets close enough but force choke and force push are required to move him forward.
- Star Wars: Republic Commando had a somewhat amusing mission in which you had to escort a Wookiee past a pair of General Grievous's bodyguards. It is possible for him to die, but he can take so much damage that it's practically impossible for the MagnaGuards to kill him, as they spend most of the time focusing on you and your squad.
Vega Strike currently twists it: the game tend to assign some or other heavy fighter as an escortee. On early stages this means "escorted" gunship lagging behind can easily destroy an average pirate before you'll approach to attack, but if you'll run into something big you both may be roasted before inflicting any damage worth mentioning.
Siren: Blood Curse Considering you play as 7 different characters across the 24 missions, you have missions where you have to snipe to protect a defenseless man and then lead him to safety, snipe to protect a little girl who's afraid of you and "lead" her to safety (i.e. approach her until she runs off in the safest direction), escort said little girl to safety while killing anything that would kill her, lead your ex-wife to safety (thankfully she's armed and does a great job of fighting on her own), and protect a woman who can't fight but can thankfully take a ton of damage.
- Siren 2 has some too, but most of the time the escort is armed, durable, or smart enough to get out of the way. Ikuko is a pain, though, because she keeps using her sightjacking ability to slow enemies and sometimes stays like that for a little while.
Army Of Two subverts this shortly after you get to your escort target. His copter goes boom and it's "go back to kill every living thing in sight."
When the first part of the last mission (or "quest") in Fallout 3 actually starts, you quickly realize you aren't really "protecting" Liberty Prime from anything; you're just trying to kill some enemies before the unstoppable giant robot nukes, vaporizes, or steps on them (possibly depriving you of much-needed XP). You still have to wait for the robot at two different points, though.
- In an earlier level, you need to escort scientists trying to escape Enclave soldiers. Fortunately the soldiers have the good sense to target you instead of them, the scientists will usually stay behind you, and you can tell them to stay put while you clear out the room ahead. Also, of the four scientists, only one is required to survive, and she has Gameplay Ally Immortality and can only be briefly knocked unconscious by enemies. You can also give another of the scientists a gun, but this only makes things harder as he'll now hold his ground and fight enemies instead of sensibly running away, causing him to die very quickly as he is very weak and can only survive a couple of hits.
  - There was also the immensely suicidal Sticky, an outcast of Little Lamplight you could escort to Big Town. Unfortunately he is a complete idiot who would willingly attack Super Mutants and Radscorpions with his fist despite having given him a revolver.
  - If you don't shoot him with a shotgun first for being too damn annoying. However, thanks to the powers of fast travel, you can bypass any encounters. This makes the mission ridiculously easy, as well as much more endurable.
- The only escort mission I've ever enjoyed occurred when you and your father run from one side of the Wasteland to the other. After spending most of the game looking for him, this was a huge emotional payoff.
Final Fantasy VI has an escort mission involving Guest Star Party Member Banon. If he dies during combat, the game's over. He has somewhat fewer HP than your other characters, but is fully controllable and has a free healing ability, making this not only much less odious than most Escort Missions, but a great way to Level Grind if you set up the controls just right.
- Just be sure to stick Banon in the back row at some point, or Ultros can very realistically kill him one hit with his Tentacle special attack if it's single-targetted on him.
Seems like the makers of Magical Battle Arena has had bad experiences with Escort Missions in the past, since the Protect Hayate with Vita mission, the one Escort Mission in the Lyrical Pack, isn't the hair-pullingly frustrating kind. Sure, Hayate is a sitting duck here, but she can take a lot of hits and her attackers are just three easy to kill Joke Characters who are quick to choose you over Hayate as their target. Essentially, the Escort Mission's only hard if you're bad at using Vita.
One of the early missions in the PC game Imperium Galactica was to escort the Admiral. You could completely ignore him and all that would happen was to get a "Where the hell were you!?" message at the end of it. Later escort missions you did have to turn up for, though.
One of the missions in Hostile Waters has you escorting a group of scientists escaping from the Cabal. They proceed to patiently wait in their base while you clear the entire map of everything that moves and set up turrets at their destination, make sure to stay behind your tanks once they get rolling, and even once the enemies start growing out of the ground (literally), they will target your units before they turn on the convoy. It's... refreshingly not frustrating.
Alone in the Dark Inferno. Sarah, who accompanies the hero in the first half of the game before finally deciding to remain in a safe place, acts more as a tag-along rather than an actual escort mission, even though you do need her help in certain places. Thankfully, bullets in the head are only minor annoyances for her, and she rarely actively gets in your way. Her comments make you want to mute the TV, though.
An optional sidequest in Vampire Bloodlines involves saving former actor Ash Rivers from hunters; there are a couple of ways to go about it, and one of them is to escort him through the sewers. Fortunately, he tends to stay a few metres behind the player, and is capable of defending himself if a hunter gets too close.
Robotech: Battlecry. Cat scan missions fom hell. Heck the whole game period is one giant Escort/Defend mission.
In Prince Of Persia 'Sands of Time' game, the player controls the Prince fighting through mythical monsters to escape the Sands of Time; his only ally is a princess stuck in the same trap. For most of the game she is in the background, nudging you along the right path, like a fairy but not as annoying. She will occasionally enter battle with you, but if she dies in battle, the game is over. You may think about focusing some of your attention toward her, but the monster AI prioritizes you and the princess AI prioritizes on keeping her away. While she is accurate with her arrows, she is not a sniper and may occasionally hit you (with apologies). Her health is also fairly high and will regenerate over time.
- The one exception to the exception is the Tower of Dawn elevator sequence, which simply has so many enemies jammed into a small area that some of them will inevitably target Farah. She doesn't really have that much health when being intentionally attacked, causing her to be killed easily, and there's really nowhere for her to run.
Fortunately very little escort action in RTS game Rise Of Legends, and perhaps the only notable one is actually pretty easy. You have to escort multiple of the same caravan unit across a relatively small map while enemies spawn magically around you, but the caravans have a decent number of hitpoints, provide area healing, and you only have to move one caravan unit at a time, meaning that the next one always comes in fresh.
- There's also one where the main character Giacomo goes on a heatstroke-induced Mushroom Samba and you have to protect him while he totters around the landscape. This one's somewhat harder.
Parodied in Kingdom Of Loathing, upon rescuing the grandma See Monkee:
Player: I'm just here to escort you back to the Sea Monkee Castle. Grandpa Sea Monkee asked me to find you.
Grandma: You're going to escort me? That's wonderful! I mean, I'm a little slow, and I'm sure I'd be useless in a fight, and I'll probably get lost over and over and you'll have to double back and find me, and I can't get over even the smallest obstacle, but I'd love to have you escort me!"
Player: Huh. On second thought, can you find your own way back? I think I've thinned out the Mer-kin enough for you to get back okay.
Grandma: Oh, that'll be fine, dearie. Don't you worry about me — this Grandma's still got some life left in her old bones!
Player: Phew, that was a close one.
Star Craft featured a brief "escort" segment of an early Terran mission, where you had to get through explored territory with a limited number of military units, SCVs, and a unique unit that would result in failure if he died. On the other hand, it was pretty much done in the first thirty seconds.
- The expansion, Brood War also had an escort mission during the Terran campaign. The player had to escort a group of unarmed pilots to steal a fleet of battlecruisers. Fortunately, the player is given full control of the pilots and can just keep them in the rear, and since this is an early mission, it has a relatively easy difficulty. Plus, if you're inept enough to actually lose any pilots, your commander will just simply chastise you and send replacements.
In Manhunt you have to escort a vagabond and later a journalist. Since players can ask them to stay hidden, they aren't very annoying.
In Kingdom Hearts II, there's a part where you need to escort Minnie to a throne in her castle, while being attacked by a horde of enemies. Minnie moves fairly slow, and must be ushered forwards with reaction commands. Luckily, standing next to her and pressing triangle will call upon a semi-powerful light spell (completely devastating if you play on easy) that knocks all enemies away.
The Simpsons Game has an escort mission in Medal Of Homer. Sargent Abraham Simpson explicitly tells you "I know what you're thinking. Not an escort mission. Well deal with it!" This also gets you a collectable cliche which Comic Book Store Guy even goes as far as to say "Worst Video Game Cliche ever!"
Front Mission Gunhazard's escort mission with Luven Al-Habi is a bit of a mixed bag. While he and his wanzer may be easily damaged by enemy fire if he's under-leveled, he has no trouble surviving when he's given a better wanzer to work with. On top of that, he isn't throwing his own bombs around in the escort mission, resulting in much less friendly fire and needless self-damage.
The game Traffic Department 2192 is generally not very difficult, with the exception of one mission where you are expected to guide five unarmed trucks filled with medical supplies from one base to another while swarms of enemy crafts attempt to destroy them. Because of the locations that the enemies come from, it is not as simple as merely following the trucks; you have to pre-emptively destroy the enemy before they even get there, or they will swarm the trucks and easily demolish them. Worse yet, if even one truck is destroyed, your mission is considered a failure.
The Arcade Game GHOST Squad has a variation of this, where you defend your squadmates from attack instead of actually escorting them anywhere. Played straight (well, strait-er) in mission 2, where you escort Hostages and Presidential bodyguards to safety.
- Luckily, the escort missions are all optional.
Goes both ways in Left 4 Dead. When it comes to the bots, you have to keep an eye on them because they have a bad habit of wandering into any fire you created or always getting themselves ambushed by special infected when they had a clear shot. It also becomes an escort mission when someone is going to die in the next hit and there are no healing items around. When playing with friends, if you are going to die soon, they will escort you.
- Admittedly, it helps that the bots, while stupid about how they behave, have ridiculous aim and skill at taking down special infected at a distance. Let's face it, though. Left 4 Dead is one big 4-player online Mutual Escort Mission.
In the 2008 Prince Of Persia, the Prince (controlled by the player) is escorting Elika on her quest to remove corruption from the fertile grounds. Elika never gets in your way, obstructs your view or does anything dumb, and follows you well. It also helps that neither of you can die. Since Elika saves the Prince's life whenever he is about to die, in reality, it is Elika who is escorting the Prince.
In The Lord Of The Rings: The Two Towers, you're evidently meant to protect Frodo as Aragorn in the first level, Weathertop. Any sense of actually protecting him is thrown out the windows since the Ringwraiths have long wind-ups for their attacks, and Frodo scampers about Weathertop like a rabbid squirrel until he gets stabbed, at which point it still takes several further blows for him to actually die. It's you that's in danger, not him.
In the MMORPG for Gaia Online, one quest has you find a rather ditzy girl who somehow has wandered onto a high cliff in the middle of a jungle. While she follows you back to the entrance, she herself cannot be hurt and enemies don't target her at you. This means that you just have to concentrate on staying alive, because if you have to leave the area then you have to find her again.
In Allegiance, a team-based multiplayer flight-sim/strategy hybrid, players must escort mission-critical spaceships such as bombers and troop transports — not because the game has an artifical "requirement" for players to do so, but simply because it's a necessary tactic to beat any competent enemy team. Most ships needing escort are flown by actual human pilots, so Artificial Stupidity does not apply (though the old-fashioned natural sort still might). The only AI-controlled ships requiring escort are miners and constructors, and team commanders can keep an eye on them and order them around to counteract their suicidal tendencies.
In The Incredible Hulk: Ultimate Destruction, as one point you must escort the Hulk's ally Leonard Samson through the city while it is under lockdown. The mission isn't annoying however, because your attacks can't hurt him, at several points he stops while you take care of the enemies, and because the military is smart enough to realize that they should focus their attention on the big green monster trying to kill them, instead of the little man driving a car.
In Warhammer 40k: Dawn Of War: Winter Assault, the penultimate Imperial Guard mission involves an escort mission. The thing is, you're escorting a Land Raider and a contingent of Ultramarines supporting it — although there's too much for it to handle by itself, it's far from helpless, and it can sometimes make it nearly halfway across the map without any player intervention before finally being destroyed.
In Prototype, one mission had you escort a prototype tank while it clears out Hives on it's way to the final objective. Thankfully, the game gives you a Gunship for this stage and the tank is escorted by additional Gunships and other normal tanks that help alleviate some of the work.
- Subverted halfway through the mission when the tank driver bails out and the player has to drive the tank himself to the final objective while fighting off both the infected and the military.
- Another mission featured you "escorting" a Leader Hunter to a location where you could keep it contained. You had to attack it, or else it would get bored and lash out at passersby, but still keep it alive. This is actually fairly easy, because the Leader Hunter is about the size of an elephant and durable enough so that the abuse you and the marines dish out shouldn't even severely damage it.