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That Far Cry Primal example is definitely misuse, I'd cut it right there. The trope description is fairly clear that the entire party has to die.
To your earlier point, from my reading of the trope, I don't think it matters how the party dies, only that their actions led to their deaths, whether from incompetence or just bad luck or the choice to fight a monster way above their level.
Personally, I'm not sure that the non-gaming/video game examples are applicable to this trope, but that's prob another discussion for another day.
I didn't choose the troping life, the troping life chose me
"Total Party Kill" is definitely gamer slang far outside of this wiki, and is often used in all sorts of situations where an entire party is killed rapidly with no chance to retaliate.
I know that in some cases, there being ways to avoid it is part of the point—a Puzzle Boss-y deal. The dangerous attacks are meant to ensure you brought ways to deal with certain types of damage, or that you've done enough Level Grinding. That kinda thing.
Sounds like the description of Total Party Kill is in need of tweaking because it says the party has to die due to incompentence (as ignorance is no excuse). Tropers seem to be using it instead as a pothole for any time a party gets slain or a party meets a foe (or foes) that can easily kill them.
Narrative-wise, Total Party Kill is supposed to show a particular enemy or boss means business like for example the heroes see fallen knights in a dragon's lair as the heroes arrive to kill the dragon. The remains is to show the dragon can easily kill the heroes regardless if the heroes are ready for it or not.
If it's not completely clear what the definition is, it might be worth taking to Trope Talk. If things still don't work out if it's taken there, then it might need to be taken to the Trope Repair Shop with a Wick Check.
Edited by GastonRabbit Patiently awaiting the release of Paper Luigi and the Marvelous Compass.
I believe that I've brought this up in the "Is this an example?" thread before, but while browsing some pages, I came across Total Party Kill and am rather confused regarding the contrast between the trope description and the examples people are giving for it, mainly when applied to video games.
From my understanding, the trope is meant to apply to when the entire party is killed, regardless of things like health, statuses, etc. However, some of the examples, mainly in the RPG section, fall into the category of "you'll only die to this if everyone doesn't have enough health and/or adequate protection against this". This effectively makes it so that anything in a game can be a TPK if the whole party is at 1 HP and the attack does damage to everyone at once.
Even the most recent example added, from Far Cry Primal, describes a situation where everyone except one character dies.
Is this trope just undergoing a large amount of misuse or something?