Permanently Missable Content / Survival Horror

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• Alien: Isolation: While the game allows for a large amount of backtracking during most of the playthrough, certain sections of the space station become unavailable in the last missions. If you never found the blueprints for items upgrades located there, sometimes the blueprints for the items themselves, you can't get them for the difficult finale.
• Alone in the Dark: If you kill the Lone Miner in the third game without stealing his gold coins via the whip, you'll never obtain any ammo for the shotgun.
• Clock Tower has a couple that trigger alternate endings if missed:
  • The player is able to find a certain item in the first scenario, depending on the player character. Jennifer can find an oil can, while Helen gets a flashlight. In both cases, you can escape without the item, and then not be able to collect it for the rest of that playthrough. In both cases, the item is needed to get that character's best ending, so if missed, the player can only get a C rank ending at best.
  • In the prologue you can choose who to send the Demon Idol to for research. Later in the game you need to go there and find it, but if you forgot who you sent it to and choose the wrong location you'll miss out on the final scenario of the game and default to Ending E.
  • Thankfully you can find hints in the game that give clues on how to get various endings, two of which warn you not to miss a "certain item" in Scenario 1 and to remember who you gave the idol to. Hilariously enough, these are also permanently missable if you happen to beat the scenario without finding them.
• Deadly Premonition mostly averts this. Many of its sidequests and collectible items appear and disappear throughout the games at important plot points. However, the game allows you to replay any chapter you've beaten, with its sidequests once more available. Some sidequests are even considered easier to finish this way than during a normal playthrough (in particular, Emily's cooking sidequests). However, if you initiate "A Snack for Willie" with anything less than all seven bones already in your inventory, your prize at the end of the sidequest is a generic regular item instead of an infinite-ammo .357 magnum. The quest stays completed even if you revert to an earlier chapter, so there is no second chance once you save, and the game never gives you any indication you messed up.
• Eternal Darkness only requires you to pick up one thing in its various chapters: spell runes. The codices to translate them, and the spell scrolls to describe what runes cast what spells, are both optional to collect, although most players would have to go out of their way to avoid collecting them. However, there is one rune which is completely skippable: the Mantorok rune, which provides a "Nuke" option in the game's Tactical Rock–Paper–Scissors magic system. Also missable is the game's Infinity +1 Sword, which is an ongoing sidequest of sorts which spans several of the game's chapters; missing any one of the involved steps renders the weapon off-limits.
• Fatal Frame:
  • The games contain quite a few ghosts that only appear once, for a very short period of time, and are often very difficult to capture on film unless you know exactly where and when they will appear and have a lightning-fast shutter finger. A New Game Plus and a guide can help the player catch them after the first playthrough.
  • On the third game, there is a pair of items called Kyoka's Earrings that are needed to unlock the happy ending. However, requirements should be met before they can be obtained. Specifically, an earring can only be obtained on a new game plus, and on Hour X with Kei Amakura. To make things harder, certain events must also be triggered to be able to fight a ghost on the said chapter that drops the key to open the drawer to where the earring is found. Since Hour X is near the end of the game, players who miss this item on their second playthrough will have to go to another new game plus for a retry.
• Five Nights at Freddy's: Security Breach has two prize boxes that are in areas that can only be accessed in specific segments, such as a prize box within the daycare that can't be collected again after you initially encounter Sun and Moon and one within a storage room in the Fazer Blast arena that can only be accessed when you first play Fazer Blast.
• Lots of stuff you can cook through alchemy in Haunting Ground can be permanently missable if you don't luck out during the alchemy sections.
• In the Mario fangame (Mario) The Music Box, certain areas will be blocked off for good after a certain point in the story, meaning you lose out on journal entries associated with the area or things you learn from them. This becomes problematic in that some rooms are not accessable all of the time and some are even forgotten or passed by because the player needs all journal entries to see the True Ending. If you saved at a certain point, then your only hope of getting the True Ending is to start all over from the beginning.
• Resident Evil:
  • The Resident Evil remake:
    • The Assault Shotgun can be permanently lost if you fail to perform certain actions in the game. Chris merely needs to save Richard with the serum, while Jill also needs to help Richard battle Yawn. Failing to do either of these renders the weapon unobtainable on that save.
    • It's also possible to permanently miss acquiring Barry's .44 magnum. However acquiring it is only possible if you let Barry die, which means you can't get the games Golden Ending any longer.
  • Resident Evil – Code: Veronica:
    • There's a section of the building that is initially only accessible through a functioning metal detector gate which essentially puts the area on lockdown if you don't get rid of any metal items from your inventory. Fortunately there's a sort of baggage check compartment built in. This container is not connected to the other chests throughout the game. Remember to take everything out when you're done with that part, because "leaving town" doesn't begin to cover it. Of surprising significance: an empty fire extinguisher.
    • Near the end of, Claire becomes playable until you encounter Steve for the last time. Whatever items or weapons she's carrying will be permanently missable when you switch back to Chris near the end of the game.
  • In Resident Evil 2, any optional item before the Laboratory is missable, such as the Sparkshot (Claire) and Shotgun Parts (Leon), which are found on a corpse in an easily-missed dead end, the Weapon Box Key found by lighting an easily-ignored flare gun (with the Lighter that Claire doesn't automatically carry^note All the lighter does is point out the key. If you know the key is there, you can pick it up without lighting the flare.), and finally, the Sidepack and Submachine Gun (which you either find in the Weapons Room, or the Culture Experiment Room that you have to unlock with both characters). The 2019 remake was actually nice enough to spell it out for you that you won't be able to go back once you've reached the Laboratory.
  • In Resident Evil 3: Nemesis:
    • Anything not picked up is lost forever once you board the cable car. For the most part this is just ammo and healing items but a careless player can also skip the shotgun or the magnum in this manner. The prizes won from defeating Nemesis can also be missed as there are only a set number of encounters against him and some encounters can be skipped by making certain choices and even missed altogether if you explore areas in the wrong orders, and the prizes are not "scripted" to go with particular encounters but instead given in sequence for each time you beat Nemesis. Want the infinite ammo pickup? You'll just have to run into and defeat him the right number of times.
    • The hidden file "Jill's Diary", which is obtained by finding every other file in the game in order. That is, the arbitrary order they are listed in the file menu. You skip one file, or grab one file out of order, and Jill's Diary is permanently unobtainable until you start a new game. Guide Dang It! is in full effect as the game allows you to freely explore areas in whatever order you choose and files can easily be mistaken for items and picked up accidentally even if you're using a walkthrough.
  • Resident Evil 4 features missable treasures in various parts of the game. While any treasure becomes permanently missable if you move on to the next section of the game, the combine-able treasures (beer stein, crown, and golden lynx) in particular are likely to be missed as well as their smaller parts. While this doesn't make the game Unwinnable, it does prevent you from making lots of money and thus delaying your weapons' progression. Also, if you kill the merchant on Professional difficulty, he stays dead for good, locking you out of all purchasable items as well as the shooting galleries.
  • Resident Evil 5 averts this by allowing the player to select any chapter for replay, which is fortunate considering how difficult it can be to shoot all 30 BSAA Emblems. One of them cannot even be seen except for a second during a cutscene!
  • Resident Evil 7: Biohazard has several points in the game where you can no longer backtrack, so any files, Antique Coins or Mr. Everywhere Bobbleheads that the player may have missed will be gone forever. The Antique Coins were especially notorious for being easy to miss and exclusive to specific areas; one of them can literally only be obtained at the very beginning of the game while another two can only be obtained while playing as Mia.
  • Resident Evil Village:
    • Each of the three Lord areas will become inaccessible once their respective Lords are beaten, so any files, weapons, treasures, or Goats of Warding that you missed will no longer be obtainable from that point onwards.
    • Anything that you may have missed in the village, like treasure or weapons, will become permanently missable once you enter Heisenberg's factory.
    • Animals can be killed and their meat can be cooked into meals that serve as permanent power-ups. However, animals spawn in limited amounts, so selling or discarding any of the meat can leave you without the proper ingredients for the remainder of the game. Though once you fully upgrade yourself, then you are free to sell or discard the meat.
• Rule of Rose is episodic in nature and as such anything you don't pick up during the current chapter/month you're playing becomes permanently missable. This becomes particularly aggravating since many items are part of bigger Chain of Deals that can be easily broken. And then there's that part of the game where the player can choose to play the following three months in any order, yet if you play them in any order but one in particular, the Infinity +1 Sword becomes permanently missable.
• SIGNALIS: There are several Points Of No Return in the game, after which any missed ammo, consumable or lore will be unavailable.
  • Killing Mynah will trigger a cutscene that will prevent you from picking up the items in her Boss Room.
  • While finding the gun case with the revolver is relatively simple (the shooting range it's in also has a duct tape key item), opening it requires a separate key found in an easily missable corner in another room across the map.
  • Elster simply refuses to take Isa's high caliber rifle without her permission. To ask for a permission Elster has to wake her up first. The only way to do that is to find ammonia salt in a different room before a certain point in the game. Many players didn't.
  • In Rotfront, Meat Moss will infest the rooms, and sometimes whole sections adjacent to the rooms, when you take the Tarot cards out of them. Anything you forgot to take or examine there will be lost.
  • The Artifact Ending requires collecting three special keys throughout the game. If even one isn't collected before leaving the area it's in, that ending becomes impossible in that run.
• In Silent Hill:
  • First game:
    • There are many points of no return that can render items and weapons missable, for example, during the fight with the Twinfeeler (caterpillar, which later becomes a moth) boss, there is a rifle (may be required for the Final Boss) in one of the corners of the fighting arena. If you didn't happen to notice it and pick it up, it will never be available again. Similarly, there is a sledgehammer in the Nightmare Hospital boiler room, which will be permanently missable once you go back to the "normal" world. And God help you if you passed a Point of No Return without enough ammo or health to fight the upcoming boss. The first game will actually reward you for entering the final boss fight with no ammo.
    • If you didn't get the red liquid in the bottle in the hospital, kiss Cybil and the Good+ ending goodbye. If you didn't unlock the motorcycle gas tank in the motel before you traversed the Point of No Return into the nightmare resort area, say goodbye to the Good ending too.
  • In Silent Hill 2: There's a pipe in the hood of a car at the gas station, and if you're rushing around a lot or don't know to pull it out, you can easily hop down the hole in the Silent Hill Historical Society and be stuck with nothing to smash a hole in the bricks with except for your piddly wooden plank, which takes a looooong time to do the job.
  • Silent Hill 3: if you missed the stungun in Heather's apartment or the submachine gun in the hospital basement, ya missed 'em for good.
  • Silent Hill 4 completely averts this by supplying halfway into the game the 'Ever Downward' spiral staircase, which vertically connects all levels in the game, allowing for all the backtracking it takes to retrieve missing items such as the Swords of Obedience and all two Silver Bullets.
  • Silent Hill: Homecoming has the crowbar found in Hell's Descent, which is in an easily-missed area that's not necessary to explore in the first place. Though the boss being borderline impossible without it makes it very likely you'll die and die until you happen to find it re-exploring the area, if you happen to endure it and beat the boss without it you miss out on it forever. It being the Penultimate Weapon in the game, combining the speed and range of the pipe with the strength of the axe, this is a particularly cruel kick to the teeth.

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