History CuttingTheKnot / VideoGames

* In one mission of ''VideoGame/SWAT4'', you can choose to enter a building through the back door. However, the door has metal bars on it to prevent its use. Instead of removing the screws, bolts, or whatever held it together, the team simply attaches a hook and rope to a car and the metal bars and has it pulled away from the weak bricks. This is probably TruthInTelevision given the amount of research and realism the company put into that game.

** This is Adell's modus operandi in ''VideoGame/{{Disgaea 2|CursedMemories}}''. He even lampshades it at one point by solving a complex geopuzzle in no time when he explains that it's not that he can't think, it's that it's usually faster to just beat your problems into submission.

** The ''Honest Hearts'' DLC allowed you to do this, although it was not necessarily ''easier'' than the alternative, just quicker (and it is morally problematic except possibly for Legion-aligned Couriers to do it deliberately): instead of helping out Daniel and Joshua in exchange for a map of the way back to the Mojave, just kill one of them (or a friendly tribal) and steal the map. You lose out on experience and achievements, but it is always an option if you just want to get back to the Mojave quickly. However, it should probably be noted that [[MemeticBadass Joshua Graham]] not only has a pistol that does as much damage as a sniper rifle with a high chance to crit, but he also has more DT than even the toughest Power Armor (Daniel is easier to deal with, though he's not a complete slouch with a gun). However, a stealth inclined Courier might be able to cut the knot more reliably by reverse-pickpocketing an active grenade into Joshua Graham’s inventory with the right perk...

*** The Myahm Agana Shrine features a rather challenging ball-rolling maze similar to the Rollgoal minigame of ''Twilight Princess'', but controlled entirely with the motion controls of the Wii U [=GamePad=] or the Switch's control options. Naturally, you can turn the whole maze over by flipping your controller upside-down, and letting the ball roll on the flat underside. That, or tilt the maze so that when the ball respawns, it's dropped into the final stretch rather than the start. The former is actually recommended by the official strategy guide for those who have difficulty maneuvering the maze, but the latter is much easier.

** The boss Wrexsoul can be rather annoying to defeat; he possesses a random party member at the start of the fight, and you're intended to kill your characters one by one until he reappears so you can attack him. Or, you can just cast Banish on his minions that he leaves behind. Those minions are ''supposed'' to respawn endlessly, but Banish delays their revival script one turn, so if it takes on both of them at once, they die and take a turn longer to revive; the game reads the enemy party as all being dead and you win. Notably, this still works in the Game Boy Advance version of the game; while that version fixed numerous bugs (like Vanish/Doom, and the evade bug), this alternate method of defeating Wrexsoul was left in. As winning the battle in the knot-cutting manner does not give the player loot or experience from the battle (but still allows Cyan to unlock his full potential in Bushido), it's a bit of a trade-off.

* In one mission of ''VideoGame/SWAT4'', you can choose to enter a building through the back door. However, the door has metal bars on it to prevent its use. Instead of removing the screws, bolts, or whatever held it together, the team simply attaches a hook and rope to a car and the metal bars and have it pulled away from the weak bricks. This is probably TruthInTelevision given the amount of research and realism the company put into that game.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Minecraft}}'', any block, with the exception of bedrock, can be broken given enough time. This proved troublesome for map makers, because frustrated players would often break through a wall rather than solve a puzzle, so Adventure Mode was added to defy this trope. Of course, it is still possible to change yourself out of adventure mode or use server commands to give yourself TNT, both of these can be stopped with command blocks but then players could teleport to those command blocks and break the redstone wiring (which is breakable even in adventure mode).

** In ''The Missing Link'' DLC, the player is presented the choice of saving either a credible witness to Belltower's atrocities or dozens of innocent victims from dying by diverting poison gas away from one and towards the other. Savvy players can TakeAThirdOption by [[spoiler:destroying the (well-hidden) pumping mechanism for the gas]], saving everyone.

* In ''VideoGame/PAYDAY2'', Bain usually has a "Plan B" for any heist that can be stealthed, which usually involves having their chopper pilot dropping you a thermal drill or some other explosives to breach the door to the safe. There are also several doors that can be blown with C4 or just flat out have their locks shot. You can also either slowly lockpick each and every deposit box...or bring a high powered saw and blaze through them in a matter of seconds. The same goes for mission critical civilians; you can either shout at them to get them to cower and tie them up, move them to a place that can't be seen and then get the item, or you can just shoot them and bag the body (and, in some cases, just flat out shoot them into the water where no one will see their corpses).

* ''VideoGame/Borderlands2'' invokes this in the "Tiny Tina" DLC. Tina (as the GM of a ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons''-style tabletop game) creates a Rubix Cube type puzzle for the players. You can either attempt to solve it (by pressing the buttons in the reverse order of when they activated when you first enter the room), or you can simply punch the puzzle. Solving the puzzle however unlocks a door where a loot chest is hidden.

** In a later mission, as part of CJ's preparation for the Caligula's Palace heist, he needs to obtain a keycard held by a female croupier. The standard approach is to date the croupier and going through the standard and time consuming raising of RelationshipValues until she gives him the card...or CJ can just kill her, take the keys to her house and get the card there, assuming you don't mind losing the minor bonuses you'd get running through the whole thing.
** To kill one of the story antagonists, you have to fight your way through a pier full of goons, only for your target to dive into the water and make for a boat. You could do the same and follow in the other boat parked nearby, leading to a high speed chase as you attempt to either capsize or gun him down. Or you could save yourself the trouble by whipping out your sniper rifle and popping him in the back a couple times while he's still swimming.

* One of the trials in ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'' was the Cavern of Transcendence. With a 90 minute time limit, a team had to travel into the tunnels under the Hollows, fighting their way through the groups of enemies there, to the door of the Cavern. Once they entered the Cavern, to complete the trial the players would have to simultaneously press 8 buttons scattered around a single, massive, room that was full of monsters between the door and the buttons. The obviously intended method of completing the mission was clearing the room of monsters first. On the other hand, if a team had at least one member with some kind of stealth capability (including superspeed) and Recall (able to teleport a teammate to your location), the preferred method of players who wanted the award the easy way was to wait at the tunnel's entrance for their stealthy teleporters to zip through the tunnels to the Cavern door, Recall the rest of the team to the door, then enter the Cavern. Then the stealth teleporters would go to each button and bring one teammate there, not aggro'ing any monsters, and then the buttons would be pressed. Depending on the number of teleporters on a team, you could complete the entire Trial in about five minutes and never enter combat once.

* In ''VideoGame/WatchDogs'', the climactic showdown between Aiden Pearce and Lucky Quinn [[spoiler:has Lucky Quinn standing behind a completely bullet-proof glass wall. Not even the most powerful sniper-rifle in the game, the "Destroyer", can pierce the glass, making it seem as if Lucky Quinn can't be killed. For anyone who's played the game up to that point, the solution is actually fairly obvious: '''Hack Lucky Quinn's pacemaker''']]!

** ''VideoGame/Dishonored2'' gives us the Dust District, in which you're tasked with breaking into a mansion secured with a supposedly unsolvable puzzle lock. In order to learn the solution to the lock, you have to get involved in the complicated politics in the Dust District, either taking sides in an ongoing gang war or playing both sides against each other. But in reality, the puzzle is merely ''difficult'', not actually unsolveable, and there's nothing stopping you from solving the puzzle, waltzing straight in, and skipping most of the level. There's even an achievement for getting past the gate this way called "Eureka".
* ''VideoGame/DawnOfTheDragons'' has an instance where [[SecondPersonNarration You]] and your the party are traversing a dungeon laden with traps, one of which is a [[DeathCourse corridor rigged with a number of spears shooting from the walls at set intervals]]. [[SecondPersonNarration You]] spend time studying the trap, trying to work out its pattern. Roland simply cuts the spears down and walks through.

* In keeping with the phantom thief theme of ''VideoGame/Persona5'', all of the major boss battles bar the fifth and seventh ones involve the player performing "special orders" that serve to debilitate the boss in a more efficient manner. A good idea in practice, but some brute force render the orders virtually useless for the second and third bosses, while the orders for first, fourth, and final bosses are not optional at all. To elaborate on the former two:

* At the end of ''Videogame/TonyHawksUnderground'', [[spoiler:your former friend Eric]] challenges you to a skate-off for a video tape of [[spoiler:an otherwise career-making stunt you performed, which Eric stole]]. Normally you are forced to accept the challenge, but if you've beaten the game before, your character just punches him out and takes the tape.

* In ''Videogame/Doom2016'', when dealing with the Argent Energy Filters the Doom Slayer is told to carefully deactivate them because it's all very important tech that could lead to an energy crisis if mishandled. The Slayer instead just stomps the hell out of them much to Hayden's frustrations.

** Sometimes you ''can'' take this approach, but doing it turns out to be a very dumb idea: [[spoiler: It's possible to retrieve the seed from the Spore-Spitting Spirea plants in the first game by hacking apart whichever plant has it. Unfortunately, the dryad you have to give it to in order to learn how to win the game doesn't take kindly to this, and {{Baleful Polymorph}}s you into a NonStandardGameOver]].

* In ''Videogame/Doom2016'', when dealing with the Argent Energy Filters the Doom Slayer is told to carefully deactivate them because it's all very important tech that could lead to an energy crisis if mishandled. The Slayer instead just stops the hell out of them much to Hayden's frustrations.

* ''VideoGame/DevilMayCry4'': During Nero's portion of the game, he's forced to go through a rather long board game puzzle, attacking a giant dice to roll it in order to move a statue "game piece" of himself across the board. When Dante comes across the same puzzle, he declares that he doesn't have time for it and cleaves the dice in two, bypassing it entirely.

* ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3'' had two knot cutting scenarios.

** The End can be defeated by not playing the game for two weeks or just simply changing the clock.

* Kreia of the second ''VideoGame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'' game has been Jedi and Sith, historian, exile, master, archivist, and teacher. She has seen the constant pattern of the two major Force schools squbble endlessly, hunt down each other to near-extinction, only to have a handful of survivors come roaring back to repeat the CycleOfRevenge. Her idea the stop this nonsense? [[spoiler:''Kill the Force entirely!'']]

** In the ending of ''Pandora Tomorrow'' [[spoiler:Sam encounters a TimeBomb that will spread smallpox throughout the ventilation system of Los Angeles International Airport when it goes off, and he doesn't have the time to defuse it or get it far enough away from people to not endanger lives. He ultimately just takes it and leaves it in the main terminal building, knowing the bomb squad will show up with the proper gear and training to contain it for him (which they do)]].
** In ''Chaos Theory'' and ''Double Agent'', locks can either be slowly but quietly unlocked, or Sam can cut through them with his blade. This makes a lot of noise, and enemies are smart enough to know when doors have been tampered with.

** The ''Honest Hearts'' DLC allowed you to do this, although it was not necessarily ''easier'' than the alternative, just quicker (and it is morally problematic except possibly for Legion-aligned Couriers to do it deliberately): instead of helping out Daniel and Joshua in exchange for a map of the way back to the Mojave, just kill one of them (or a friendly tribal) and steal the map. You lose out on experience and achievements, but it is always an option if you just want to get back to the Mojave quickly. However, it should probably be noted that [[MemeticBadass Joshua Graham]] not only has a pistol that does as much damage as a sniper rifle with a high chance to crit, but he also has more DT than even the toughest Power Armor (Daniel is easier to deal with, though he's not a complete slouch with a gun).
** However, a stealth inclined Courier might be able to cut the knot once more by reverse pickpocketing an active grenade into Joshua Graham’s inventory with the right perk...

'''Shepard:''' No you won't. ''(BANG)''\\
''(Talid falls over, dead)''\\

'''Shepard:''' No you won't. ''(BANG)'' Hostages only work when your enemy cares if they live.\\

'''Shepard:''' Now your son can't kill him.

** At one point in the [[VideoGame/MassEffect2 sequel]], a drell named Kolyat takes a turian hostage at gunpoint. You don't want to kill Kolyat because he's the son of one of your squadmates, and you certainly don't want Kolyat to kill the hostage because preventing him from becoming a murderer like his father was the whole point of the mission in the first place. Renegade Shepard just [[ShootTheHostage shoots the hostage him/herself]]. Granted, [[AssholeVictim the hostage really deserved it]].

** This is basically what [[GoldenEnding Ending C]] amounts to. [[spoiler:Fanklin, when faced with the option of either killing Trevor or killing Michael, decides "fuck it, let's just team up and kill everyone who's threatening us" and they do. Taking Out [[PrivateMilitaryContractors Merryweather]], [[TriadsAndTongs The Triads]], [[GangBangers The Ballas]], [[DirtyCop Steve Haines]], and [[CorruptCorporateExecutive Devin Weston]] all in one fell swoop.]]

* One of the trial in ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'' was the Cavern of Transcendence. With a 90 minute time limit, a team had to travel into the tunnels under the Hollows, fighting their way through the groups of enemies there, to the door of the Cavern. Once they entered the Cavern, to complete the trial the players would have to simultaneously press 8 buttons scattered around a single, massive, room that was full of monsters between the door and the buttons. The obviously intended method of completing the mission was clearing the room of monsters first. On the other hand, if a team had at least one member with some kind of stealth capability (including superspeed) and Recall (able to teleport a teammate to your location), the preferred method of players who wanted the award the easy way was to wait at the tunnel's entrance for their stealthy teleporters to zip through the tunnels to the Cavern door, Recall the rest of the team to the door, then enter the Cavern. Then the stealth teleporters would go to each button and bring one teammate there, not aggro'ing any monsters, and then the buttons would be pressed. Depending on the number of teleporters on a team, you could complete the entire Trial in about five minutes and never enter combat once.

* ''VideoGame/TheSecretOfMonkeyIsland'' has Guybrush thrown into the sea tied to an idol. You have ten minutes to escape before Guybrush drowns. There are several sharp objects that could free you ''just'' out of reach. The solution: [[spoiler:Pick up the idol (which, just moments earlier, you were carrying in your inventory with absolutely no problem) and walk out with it]].

* ''Videogame/DoomEternal:'' The Doom Slayer needs to get to a spot near the core of Mars quickly, with no known pathways to it; Samuel Hayden only says it will take time... cue the Slayer immediately looking up the schematics and location of [[WaveMotionGun the gigantic BFG-10000 orbital defense cannon]]. One gigantic swirling crater in the planet later, it works.

* ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4'' has you fight Crying Wolf as a callback to the Sniper Wolf battle. It can be rendered trivial by hiding under a truck and tranquilizing the FROGs so that they can't bother you. It's more preferable to straight out killing them because doing so will cause them to respawn.

-->'''Kolyat:''' All of you, back off! I'll kill him!\\

*** Shrine puzzles can often be handled in more than one way, not necessarily by tackling the intended challenge. For instance, most fire-based puzzles are intended to be handled with clever use of the bow, but fire arrows and/or a torch completely trivialize them, as does liberal use of Chuchu jelly and metal weapons for electrical puzzles. A lot of switches are meant to be held down by objects hidden in the shrine, but ten apples will do just as well, or you can temporarily lock a pressed switch in place with the Stasis rune. Of course, this kind of experimentation is encouraged, as it doesn't matter how you reach the monk at the end; they praise your '''resourcefulness''', no matter how you get there.

** This is basically what [[GoldenEnding Ending C]] amounts to. [[spoiler:Fanklin, when faced with the option of either killing Trevor or killing Michael, decides "fuck it, let's just team up and kill everyone who's threatening us" and they do. Taking Out [[PrivateMilitaryContractors Merryweather]], [[TriadsAndTongs The Triads]], [[GangBangers The Ballas]], [[DirtyCop Steve Haines]], and [[CorruptCorperateExecutive Devin Weston]] all in one fell swoop.]]

** This is basically what [[GoldenEnding Ending C]] amounts to. [[spoiler:Fanklin, when faced with the option of either killing Trevor or killing Michael, decides "fuck it, let's just team up and kill everyone who's threatening us" and they do. Taking Out [[PrivateMilitaryContractors Merryweather]], [[TriadsAndTongs The Triads]], [[GangBangers The Ballas]], [[DirtyCop Steve Haines]], and [[CorruptCorperateExecu tive Devin Weston]] all in one fell swoop.]]

** However, a stealth inclined Courier might be able cut the knot once more by reverse pickpocketing an active grenade into Joshua Graham’s inventory with the right perk...