History Main / CriticalEncumbranceFailure

*** The series in general plays this trope straight. Depending on just how much over your carry weight you are, you will either move very slowly or be completely immobile. ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 1}}'' had an amusing bug where your companions would only check for weight when bartering -- but not stealing or planting items. Thus, NPC followers became pack mules with an unlimited carrying capacity as the player kept planting miniguns and suits of metal armor on their person. It really sucked when they died -- how are you going to move 500 pounds of stuff now?

* ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'' averts this with a vengeance. If your currently-equipped gear goes over your Equip Load stat, you can only walk slowly and can't roll. However, your character's mobility also changes depending on whether their equipment takes up less than 25%, 50%, or 100% of their Equip Load stat, from being able to sprint at full speed and make rapid consecutive rolls for as long as you have stamina, to clomping around and flopping ineffectually when you try to roll (also known as [[FanNickname fat rolling]].)

[[caption-width-right:350:The [[TheLastStraw flower]] that [[http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/comics/namegame/9247-Carry-That-Weight broke the camel's back.]]]]

[[folder: Adventure Games ]]

[[folder: First Person Shooter ]]

[[folder: [=MMORPG=]s ]]

[[folder: Mecha Game ]]

[[folder: Role Playing Games ]]

[[folder: Simulation Games ]]

[[folder: Stealth-Based Games]]

[[folder: Turn Based Strategy ]]

[[folder: Wide Open Sandbox ]]

[[folder: Literature]]

[[folder: Tabletop Games ]]

[[folder: Real Life ]]

* ''Discworld/{{Pyramids}}'' portrays one; Pteppic, in prepaing for his [[LockAndLoadMontage Assassin's Guild final exam,]] loads so many weapons and gear onto himself that he falls over when he tries to take a step.

* Averted in ''VideoGame/{{Boktai}} 2''. Your character's movement speed was the difference between his speed stat and the weight of his armor. However, not wearing armor with a high speed stat made your character [[GameBreaker so unbelievably fast]] that it was actually better to go armor-less.

* [[https://derpicdn.net/img/view/2013/8/17/402894.gif This scene]] in ''WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyTheMovie.'' That damn 0.01 pound feather!

** The most recent (fifth) edition of the game plays this straight instead of gradually slowing the cahracter as a deliberate anti-frustration feature, to the point of having the simple encumbrance cutoff scale linearly with strength rather than requiring reference to a chart. The multiplier is also intentionally selected so that even minimum-strength characters will be able to carry an order of magnitude more than even the heaviest arms and armor in order to minimize how often it comes up in-game.

* ''VideoGame/NetHack'' has various levels of encumbrance, which increasingly limit your movement - burdened, strained, stressed, overtaxed (when you can't walk), and overloaded (when you can barely move your arms).

* Averted in ''Boktai2''. Your character's movement speed was the difference between his speed stat and the weight of his armor. However, not wearing armor with a high speed stat made your character [[GameBreaker so unbelievably fast]] that it was actually better to go armor-less.

* Averted (but notably straddling) with ''VideoGame/{{Payday 2}}'': you're not crawling at a slow pace because you picked up that one piece of jewelry, you're crawling because you're carrying about seventy pounds of solid gold while holding a gun in your hands. If you're even slower than usual, it's probably because of all that heavy armor. However, the weight of the gun you are carrying (from a Chinamo compact pistol to a FREAKING TURRET-GUN LMG) is negligible to movement speed. All non-boxed jewelries/single-stacks of cash are treated like zero-weight pickups. They're also not worth that much.

* ''VideoGame/TricksterOnline'' has this, as well as an annoying 300 item limit on your inventory. Once you hit 90% weight capacity, you are reduced to walking. Reaching 300 items merely prevents picking up more items, unless they stack on a single slot, like {{Healing Potion}}s. There is also a [[PointBuildSystem character stat]] made specificly to increase weight capacity.

* The ''NavalOps'' series does this with ships. While increasing weight will slow a ship down a bit, go just one unit over the hull's weight limit and the ship won't work. Probably because it can't float anymore.

* In ''MitadakeHigh'', your movement speed will take an extremely sudden fall if the total weight of your carried items goes over 20 - even if the last thing you picked up was a piece of note paper, and you could move just fine before that.

* Most games by Bethesda
** ''Franchise/TheElderScrolls'' series. This is amusing, but potentially fatal when you're close to the limit, and the arrow you've just been struck with puts you over and you become rooted to the spot. [[note]]As well as the jarringly sudden immobility, ''Morrowind'' reduces your jump height and ''Oblivion'' reduces jump height and running speed as you become encumbered.[[/note]] Made particularly obvious with the UselessUsefulSpell, Burden, which artificially increases a character's encumbrance. Sadly no enemy is ever close to the tipping point so this spell only harms players.
*** As some kind of twisted AntiFrustrationMeasure, key items (items that are associated with a quest and can never be dropped normally) actually weigh zero pounds despite their numerical value. Even that giant ceremonial orc warhammer. The Daedric artifacts are NOT key items and will be one hell of a straw.
** The ''VideoGame/{{Fallout}}'' series plays this trope straight. Depending on just how much over your carry weight you are, you will either move very slowly or be completely immobile. ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 1}}'' had an amusing bug where your companions would only check for weight when bartering -- but not stealing or planting items. Thus, NPC followers became pack mules with an unlimited carrying capacity as the player kept planting miniguns and suits of metal armor on their person. It really sucked when they died -- how are you going to move 500 pounds of stuff now?

*** ''New Vegas'' however has a perk that lets you fast travel while over-encumbered, as well as perks that reduce the weight of some of your items.

* ''DungeonCrawlStoneSoup'' used to have encumbrance ratings, which were based off of your character's Strength stat. Melee-focused brutes wouldn't have as much trouble unless they were using a lot of really heavy equipment or carrying around large rocks, but noodly wizard types could potentially have trouble carrying all the potions and scrolls they wanted to. As of version 0.15, item weight and encumbrance have been removed from the game as part of the AntiFrustrationFeatures.

* The ''{{VideoGame/Mechwarrior}}'' games prevent overweight mechs from being used, but a mech with a single Small Laser and one with a full permitted loadout still both move at the same speed unless the empty tonnage in the former is used for a more powerful engine.

** Although the games attempts to subvert this, a player could theoretically have three weapons available. However, to do this, they would have to constantly move towards their next objective, while at the same time constantly throwing away the second weapon to pick up the third weapon. Doing this repeatedly makes the player throw the current weapon forwards, while picking up the new one. So if you really want that rocket launcher to shoot at the Covenant tank in the next area, you'll have to keep throwing it forward. It's not very practical, however.

* A human being able to lift 300 kg as if it were nothing but not 301 kg is ''Website/{{Cracked}}'''s #12 [[http://www.cracked.com/photoplasty_388_27-science-lessons-as-taught-by-famous-video-games_p2/ Science Lesson As Taught by Famous Video Games]].

* [[https://derpicdn.net/img/view/2013/8/17/402894.gif This]] scene in WesternAnimation/MyLittlePonyTheMovie. That damn 0.01 pound feather!

* TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons, where an increasingly large load slows you down more and more, and even a load of up to 5 times your encumbrance limit can still be dragged.

* ''Discworld/{{Pyramids}}'' portrays one; Pteppic, in prepaing for his Assassin's Guild final exam, [[LockAndLoadMontage]] loads so many weapons and gear onto himself that he falls over when he tries to take a step.

* Thw ''{{VideoGame/Mechwarrior}}'' games prevent overweight mechs from being used, but a mech with a single Small Laser and one with a full permitted loadout still both move at the same speed unless the empty tonnage in the former is used for a more powerful engine.

* ''Videogame/Mechwarrior'' prevents overweight mechs from being used, but a mech with a single Small Laser and one with a full permitted loadout both move at the same speed if the empty tonnage in the former isn't used for a more powerful engine.

* In ''VideoGame/LostInBlue'', each character has a twenty-slot inventory. This leads to bizarre occasions where the characters can somehow [[GameFAQs shove twenty logs down their ass]], but only be able to carry twenty leaves.