History Main / InstantWinCondition

* Downplayed with Quidditch in the ''Literature/HarryPotter'' series.
** The Golden Snitch is worth so many points that 99% of the time, the team that catches it wins the match, making the other players a bit irrelevant except for the purpose of racking up the highest possible score. However, there are phenomenally rare occasions where a team is so badly outmatched that even the massive amount of points from a caught Golden Snitch is not enough to secure a victory, in which case catching the Snitch becomes an Instant '''Loss''' Condition for the weaker team (the match ends, and the opposing team proceeds to win because they scored more points in goals than the Snitch is worth).[[note]]There's also the issue that league championships are decided on the basis of total points scored in a season, rather than simply win-loss record. Thus sometimes catching the snitch too early, before the rest of the team can score enough points, will win the specific game but ruin the chances of winning the championship.[[/note]]
** This is parodied in ''Porry Hatter and the Stone Philosopher'', where Porry is being explained the rules for the even more ridiculous "footbich" by the snitch equivalent "swinch" (yes, this one can talk). Finally, when told that the team, whose Persuader can catch the "swinch", is the victor, the boy asks about the purpose of the rest of the team. The ball tells him that it's a team sport, so there have to be others. Besides, no one would go see a game about two players and a single ball.
** Also happens in the Russian knock-off ''Tanya Grotter'' with "dragonball" (not [[Franchise/DragonBall that one]]), which involves throwing various types of balls into the mouths of dragons. One of the balls is filled with a sedative, resulting in the dragon becoming useless and the team winning. There's a flimsy explanation, pointing out that the sedative ball is extremely difficult to throw. So, naturally, this ''extremely rare'' occurrence happens quite a lot in the series.

*** If you Tribute Summon "Exodia, Master of the Guard" using five monsters, and then have it destroy an opponent's Dark Fiend monster, you win the duel.
** "Relay Soul" gives your ''opponent'' an Instant-Win Condition, allowing you to Special Summon any monster from your hand or deck and protecting you from damage while its on the field, but making your opponent win the game if they manage to remove that monster.
** Win conditions also must actually successfully resolve to actually win you the duel - for example, activate Ring of Destruction when your opponent gets the last piece of Exodia or "Spirit Message - L", knock their Life Points to 0, and you win instead because chains resolve in reverse of the cards being activated. So your effect happens first, unless they can stop it.

->'''''"[[TabletopGame/{{Chess}} Checkmate!]]"'''''

* In ''[[Pinball/WHODunnit WHO dunnit]]'', if the three-reel Slot Machine has two matching symbols, the player has a limited amount of time to shoot a "Pull Slot" target. Successfully doing so makes the third reel match and awards the result.

*** Summoning "Exodia the Forbidden One" is an instant win for the player doing so, but requires ''five'' subsequent cards to be on-hand and used on the field: "Left Arm of the Forbidden One", "Right Arm of the Forbidden One", "Left Leg of the Forbidden One", "Right Leg of the Forbidden One" and "Exodia the Forbidden One" (head/torso).

* In ''Series/RobotWars'' you can be battered, smashed, running on the last bit of engineering, and if you can put your opponent in the pit of oblivion, you automatically win (this most famously happened in the all-time classic battle between [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7BPMohOsmc Bigger Brother and Hypno-Disc]]). The same applies to your opponent becoming immobilised, either by a mechanical malfunction or through its own actions (e.g. the early Razer defeat when it pinned itself to the floor with its wheels in mid-air), although it would require 30 seconds of them not moving.

* In the StarWars game ''The Queen's Gambit'', if the Naboo side gets Anakin to the Droid Control Ship, all the droids (which is almost everything the Trade Federation player has) instantly deactivate. As long as Naboo still has 3 pieces in the palace, they win.

* In the Discworld board game, AnkhMorpork, each player has a secret identity with instant win conditions depending on factors such as the property they own, how much Trouble is being caused etc. If you are Commander Vimes, all you have to concentrate on is stopping these conditions happening, as if you reach the end of the draw pile with no one else winning, you've won!

* In ''Literature/TheHungerGames'', you win if you're the last tribute alive (and if you are you're likely to stay alive, since victors are given immediate medical treatment). Haymitch managed to win his game despite basically being disemboweled when he was able to trick his opponent into throwing an axe at the force field surrounding the arena, which bounces back anything that hits it. She gets an axe to the head, giving Haymitch the victory.

* ''Series/{{Lingo}}'': Scoring the maximum possible 10 words in Bonus Lingo guarantees a win, as each correct word results in a randomly-drawn Lingo ball used to cover up a partially filled-in bingo-style board. Getting all 10 words means that enough balls will be drawn to get at least one "Lingo" (5 in a row) and win a cash jackpot. (Although winning the ''top'' prize requires completing the Lingo on the first draw, which is entirely up to chance.)

* ''TabletopGame/BloodOnTheClockTower'': Very common in the social deduction game Blood on the Clocktower, both for the good and evil team. It's complicatd by the fact that winning in such a way will often require careful planning/good bluffing. Starting from Trouble Brewing:

* In the ''Webcomic/ElGoonishShive'' [[BlandNameProduct Magickal Cards]] tournament in "Squirrel Prophet", Sarah [[http://egscomics.com/comic/2014-11-13 manages to "deck" Sam]] (a.k.a make him run out of cards) by ''accident''. (They're stalemated, but Sarah has a couple more cards, simply because she couldn't decide between them.) She [[http://egscomics.com/comic/2014-11-14 offers Sam a draw]], since she's only going to win by luck, but [[http://egscomics.com/comic/2014-11-17 he refuses]], saying she won fair and square.

** In American football overtime, scoring a touchdown (6 points) at any time ends the game. If the team that receives the kickoff only scores a field goal (3 points) on their first possession, the other team gets one possession to respond, and if they score a field goal of their own, the next team to score in any way wins. If the recieving team doesn't score on their first possession, the next score wins. Any defensive score (a safety or an interception/fumble returned for a touchdown) immediately ends the game. The other instant win condition is if the team that is winning has or takes control of the ball with (approximately) 1 minute left on the game clock: they can easily run "quarterback kneel" plays that stop play but keep the clock going until the match is over, and the defense can do nothing about it.

* An anecdote printed in an early ''Magic: the Gathering'' tournament rule-book related the story of a play-tester that was inexplicably winning almost every game. Upon investigation, it was discovered that one of the player's cards (''Time Walk'', which is still a massive GameBreaker and one of the Power Nine, but isn't an instant win on its own) read, 'When this card is played, opponent loses next turn' (as in, 'the opponent skips his next turn'), but the player interpreted the text to mean 'the opponent loses ''the match'' next turn' and had been using that inadvertent loophole as an instant-win condition. The card's text was quickly re-written to state that the person who played the card took an extra turn.
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* In many CCG, you can cause a player to lose by fixing it so that they run out of cards in their deck before you do; if it's their turn to draw, and they can't draw any cards due to there being none left, they lose, no matter how far ahead they were at the time. This is referred to as "milling" in card game parlance (after a TabletopGame/MagicTheGathering card that reduced the enemy's library, [[http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=370737 Millstone]]). An exception to these is Magi-nation, where, due to the nature of the game, games can last a very long time indeed, the rules indicate that when you run out of cards in your deck, you shuffle your discard pile, and set it as your deck. The only way to win is to have the opposing Magi hit 0 energy without any creatures on the field, so it's entirely possible for both players to lose if they aren't careful.

* ''Series/WheelOfFortune'': Provided the contestant can correctly pronounce the displayed puzzle, a contestant filling in the bonus puzzle completely won automatically. (The video game version, which does not require the reading of the puzzle aloud, automatically awards the contestant the win.)

* In ''7 Wonders Duel'', a two-person spinoff of ''[[TabletopGame/SevenWonders 7 Wonders]]'', the game normally ends when the players progress through 3 ages, and the winner is decided by total number of Victory Points accumulated in multiple ways. However, two win conditions instantly end the game: Military Supremacy (Conflict token reaches opponent's capital, signalling conquest) or Scientific Supremacy (attaining 6 of the 7 possible scientific masteries). Note that partial credit is awarded and progressing both yields immediate benefits, so it's not all-or-nothing.

* In ''7 Wonders Duel'', a two-person spinoff of ''7 Wonders'', the game normally ends when the players progress through 3 ages, and the winner is decided by total number of Victory Points accumulated in multiple ways. However, two win conditions instantly end the game: Military Supremacy (Conflict token reaches opponent's capital, signalling conquest) or Scientific Supremacy (attaining 6 of the 7 possible scientific masteries). Note that partial credit is awarded and progressing both yields immediate benefits, so it's not all-or-nothing.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'' episode "Wing It Like Witches" hangs one giant lampshade on this trope (And thoroughly mocks ''Harry Potter'') when Luz and friend's hard-fought Grudgby victory is undone because Boscha caught the "Rusty Smidge", granting them 999 points. Apparently all Witch sports have such an element. Luz is ''not'' happy.

[[folder:Real Life ]]

* In ''Series/RunForMoneyTousouchuu'' (the original Japanese version of ''[[Series/ChaseGameShow Cha$e]]''), all you have to do to win the grand prize is avoid getting tagged by a Hunter until the time limit runs out. Even if you're running as fast as you can with a Hunter right behind you and gaining, you still win as long as the countdown hits zero before you get tagged (and at least one player has won this way on the show).

*** If a player has "Left Arm of the Forbidden One", "Right Arm of the Forbidden One", "Left Leg of the Forbidden One", "Right Leg of the Forbidden One" and "Exodia the Forbidden One" in their hand, they win the duel.

*** "Destiny Board" puts one Spirit Message onto the field at the end of your opponent's turn, and you win if you have Destiny Board and the four different Spirt Messages on the field at once.

** There are a number of monsters, which, if they win the duel with a direct attack, win you the entire match if played in a tournament (which are normally played as best-of-three). The first one, "Victory Dragon", is currently banned while the [[https://yugioh.fandom.com/wiki/Match_winner rest]] have a stipulation banning their use in official duels and are generally given out as tournament prizes.

* In the Literature/ArtemisFowl short story [=LEPrecon=], Holly plays a game of Paintball with the commander about her promotion, where the commander promised her, she would win if she managed to land a single hit on him. The game gets interrupted by the main conflict of the story, and both the reader and Root forget about it... but Holly doesn't. Once she's established that the threat is over and Root is safe, she pulls out her marker and shoots him in the chest, reminding him that the game technically never ended and he ''did'' promise.

* ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'' episode "Wing It Like Witches" hangs one giant lampshade on this trope (And thoroughly mocks Harry Potter) when Luz and friend's hard-fought Grudgby victory is undone because Boscha caught the "Rusty Smidge", granting them 999 points. Apparently all Witch sports have such an element. Luz is ''not'' happy.

[[folder: Board Games ]]

[[folder:Video Games]]
* In many video games, win conditions are dependant on players moving past certain areas, collecting certain objects, or killing certain characters. The game usually does not care if you didn't complete all the events the player was supposed to do first. For example, if a door blocking the exit of the level only opens after all the enemies are defeated, the game will still allow the player to exit the level if they find some glitch that allows them to phase through the door. Any percent speed-runners use glitches and exploits to skip as much of the game as possible to get to the "win the game" condition as fast as possible.
* This trope sees abundant use in the ''Franchise/SuperMarioBros'' series.
** In ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros1'' and ''[[VideoGame/SuperMarioBrosTheLostLevels The Lost Levels]]'', jumping behind Bowser and touching the axe destroys the bridge and sends him tumbling into the lava pit below. Basically, if you reach Bowser with a Mushroom or Fire Flower, you've already won, as you can just take a hit and then use your MercyInvincibility to run right past him.
** In ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros3'' and ''VideoGame/SuperMarioWorld'', clearing a stage will usually cause all remaining foes on screen to spontaneously transform into coins. ''VideoGame/SuperMarioBros2'' does this only when the boss of the current world is defeated. The remaining games merely turn the enemies into earned points when the flagpole is touched, though if enough of them are gathered at once, they will turn into extra lives.
** In the 3D games, no matter the situation, as long as you get to the Star, Shine Sprite or flagpole without dying, you're fine. It doesn't matter if in the middle of an island sinking into lava, the bottom of the ocean with hardly any oxygen, or in the case of ''VideoGame/SuperMario64'', doing a victory dance on a bottomless pit/the middle of the sky[[note]]this one was changed in the remake[[/note]].
** ''VideoGame/SuperMarioGalaxy2'' takes this to the extreme. Many of the Green Stars actually require you to ''leap to your death''. As long as you can manage to collide with the star along the way, you're golden.
** ''VideoGame/KaizoMarioWorld'', the TropeNamer for the KaizoTrap, goes out of its way to avert this trope. Unless you've taken care to cover the pit beyond the finish line, grabbing the flag will cause Mario to happily walk to his death.
* In the ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBros'' games, you can still win in many situations even if you're careening towards certain doom so long as your enemy does so first.
** One method that invokes this same technicality is to swallow the last enemy as Kirby and fall off the side. For some reason, the enemy in Kirby's belly will count as having been defeated first, leading to an instant win with Kirby some minuscule distance away from his own death. His "throw" moves work similarly.
** Bowser does it better. He can grab an enemy and body slam them into the floor. If you move in midair to over a pit during this attack, Bowser can end up pulling the enemy along on a suicide dive, the enemy dying a moment before Bowser.
** In the original, this bug only worked on TheDragon Metal Mario, but other enemies could be beaten using a variation.
** It can be done in some manner by DK, Diddy Kong, and Ganondorf, etc.
** In ''Brawl'', a bug in the code can result in either an instant victory or Sudden Death, depending on controller order. The "Suicidal KO" rule used in tournament play fixes this.
** A situation universal to every Smash Bros. game, combination of characters, and rulesets is that if the remaining characters have all been sent flying, whoever gets [=KOed=] last wins. Thus, someone who got punted first could still win the match as long as the game has declared everyone else [=KOed=] before him or her (as the length of time between the final blow and declaration of a KO can vary depending on the stage, the direction of the launch, and the location of the final blow).
** This got particularly frustrating if both fighters were knocked off the top of the screen, which resulted in either a [[TwinkleInTheSky star KO]] or a [[CameraAbuse screen KO]]. The former took twice as long as the latter, meaning whoever got sent flying first might narrowly win if they got lucky with their defeat animation. Later games [[AntiFrustrationFeatures treat the top of the screen as a normal blast line on the final stock]].
* In ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}}'', you can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat (and your rivals) simply by accomplishing a victory condition -- ''any'' victory condition -- before they do. Enemy at the gates? Get that ship to Alpha Centauri and you win. Another Civ about to colonize the stars? Stomp him flat and conquer the globe. Diplomatic and cultural victories are also possible in the later games, allowing even Civs with weak militaries and backwards technological development to come out ahead of their competition. ''Alpha Centauri'' also included an economic victory by cornering the global energy market. Domination victory is achieved when only one player still has their original capital, so you win if you take their capital even if the enemy has 15+ cities spitting out military units and is about to take it right back next turn.
** Even weirder is the space race victory in the Civ I, Civ II, the Beyond the Sword expansion for Civ IV, and Civ Rev. You win when the spaceship ''reaches'' Alpha Centauri (not just when you launch it). If your opponents wipe you off the map in the time it takes to get there, you still lose, even though your colonists will still arrive at Alpha Centauri. Or conversely, if your opponent has already launched the spaceship, killing ''him'' quickly (nukes are your friend there) will stop him from winning. In some cases you may be able to complete a faster spaceship, and beat him there.
** It can get even more absurd, but not less fun, in the mod ''Rhye's and Fall of Civilization'', which focuses on accomplishing specific historical goals, quite a few of which involving building something or researching a specific technology. For instance, as the Mayans, the Aztecs and Europeans may have reduced you to maybe five squares of Central America, but as long as you researched calendars and build the Temple of Kukulkan, you'll automatically win if you live to 1745.
** Civ IV's cultural victory conditions are a great example of this trope. A strong alliance can burn all but three of your cities to flames (and be about to take care of the last three), but if you can reach "Legendary" culture levels in those three cities, instant win.
** ''Civilization VI'' took steps to at least tone this down, making it easier to see the end coming in time to do something about it. Domination was carefully reworded to require the one civ to control every opponent's capital simultaneously. The Space Race now involves three separate phases, and every player is notified when a phase is completed (after all, a space launch is difficult to miss). Culture and Religion victories are the result of a gradual spread, with ways to undermine the leaders or defend yourself as long as you're paying attention. That said, the finish line is ultimately crossed with a single action in every case.
*** On the other hand, ''VI'' had the AI tweaked so that other Civs will likely declare war on you when you're about to win, which can highlight the oddity more when you launch the mission to Mars while the enemy is about to smash your spaceport to bits.
** In ''VideoGame/CivilizationBeyondEarth'', it's even more prevalent. The Domination victory has remained unchanged, but the other four victories all involve going through several steps and building a giant, destructible, wonder on a tile near your city. Every player in the game is informed of every other player's progress, so pretty much every game can end with every player making a rush to assault the player who made the most progress towards victory.
** In the ''Alien Crossfire'' ExpansionPack to ''VideoGame/SidMeiersAlphaCentauri'', the Progenitor factions have an additional victory option, if they manage to build and power a certain number of {{Subspace Ansible}}s for a specific number of turns, they will send a signal to their homeworld and summon their entire fleet. Presumably, the fleet then wipes every other faction off the face of Planet.
* A common case in ''VideoGame/SupremeCommander'', where the default victory condition is 'assassination'. If you kill your opponent's Armored Command Unit, they're wiped out. Many games are ended by a single large wing of strategic bombers punching through a layered defense, or a single nuke, aimed to take out a single unit.
* ''VideoGame/TotalAnnihilation''. In the campaign and the default multiplayer settings destroying a faction's Commander would instantly ''detonate'' every single one of their units and structures- effectively a shortcut to the more plausible 'destroy all enemies'.
* In ''VideoGame/FreedomFighters'', a potential BolivianArmyEnding can immediately be reversed as long as you can raise the American flag at the end of the level.
* ''VideoGame/GranblueFantasy'':
** Sometimes, the objective for an Arcarum map will be written as "None", allowing you to freely explore the nodes or simply move to the next map.
** In some scripted event and story battles, reaching a certain number of turns will automatically end the fight and proceed with the next episode of the chapter.
* ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAuto'':
** Your Wanted level will be reduced to zero immediately upon finishing many missions. This can lead to a case where you have a dozen police cars surrounding you as you reach your objective, then all of them decide "Oh, he won. Let's go get some coffee."
** Also works by going into a Pay 'N Spray, even when the damn Army is chasing you (unless you have a vehicle they won't touch, or there is an APB on the mission vehicle). You'd almost think [[WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons Chief Wiggum]] was leading the police in those games.
** And then you have ''VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoChinatownWars'', while Pay 'N' Spray will remove your wanted level with a fresh coat of paint, they'll outright ''refuse'' to do so while there are any active cops or police cruisers in the vicinity. Police cruisers make up about a third of the traffic on ''Chinatown Wars'' take of Liberty City, and your chances of actually getting anywhere near a Pay 'N' Spray without cops trying to ram you off the road approach practically zero. Still, heat magically disappears if you trigger a mission, complete a mission, or walk into your safehouse and rest for six hours ''even in full view of the police,'' as it has from ''[[VideoGame/GrandTheftAutoSanAndreas San Andreas]]''.
* ''VideoGame/SaintsRow''
** The Saints stores in ''VideoGame/SaintsRowTheThird''. You walk into a store and instantly your wanted level disappears. Why? Because your (invisible) boys are guarding the store and it is Saints territory. Which is enough to scare off tanks and APCs sent by someone who openly declared war on you.
** In ''VideoGame/SaintsRowIV'', you can't lose your wanted level by hiding in your cribs anymore: Zinyak had the foresight to remove them from the virtual recreation of Steelport. On the other hand, when you become wanted, a Golden CID appears. Chasing it down and destroying it will instantly remove your wanted level and send any police or Zin attacking you away. Same for if you max out your wanted level and subsequently destroy the Warden.
* Has been known to happen in Double Conquest maps in ''VideoGame/Battlefield2142.'' One team will have the other down to only a few tickets until defeat while still having over a hundred left themselves, when a sudden strike from behind sweeps across the field capturing all their spawn points and wiping them out. Without anywhere to spawn, all those tickets are worth NOTHING. (Of course, this is very rare as a team which ends up that far behind on tickets most likely lacks the coordination to mount this kind of counterattack.)
* In the ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquer'' series (and many similar games), many missions just involve getting to a particular MacGuffin. Once you're actually at it, even if half the enemy army is about to converge at your position in what will surely be a one-sided victory for them, the mission ends and you miraculously escape off-camera. Except for that one mission in the first game where you have to escape with it: Nod mission 6.
** This ends in tragedy in ''VideoGame/CommandAndConquerRedAlert2'', where lose conditions are checked even after the victory banner is shown; one Allied mission requires using Tanya to destroy a few key buildings in a Soviet base, and Tanya can be overrun and killed if you complete your objective without clearing out the enemies (especially attack dogs) nearby -- the victory banner is shown and cheering starts, then Tanya dies and the Mission Failed banner appears over the victory banner and you must start the mission over.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Outpost 2}}'', every mission is a race against time. If you're playing as Eden, the bacterial nightmare called the Blight encroaches on the map and starts destroying your base, consuming it entirely if you dawdle, resulting in an automatic mission failure. Plymouth faces a similar threat from volcanic activity: If you take too long, you'll get swamped by lava. The thing is, even if the Blight or the lava is just a tile or two away from your Command Center, if you can otherwise fulfill the mission conditions, your colonists are all packed up and ready to escape before the disaster consumes everything. There is a constant requirement across all base building missions in the ''Outpost 2'' campaign is to be sure you have enough evacuation transports constructed for your current population, and have materials for the new colony already loaded into trucks and ready to leave at a moment's notice. If this isn't the case, either by not building them or the transports somehow getting destroyed, victory ''will not'' occur. Indeed, in the closing missions, you're reminded to keep your population at a steady figure, too, lest people be left behind. [[spoiler:Not to mention, a big part of one mission is a non-optional mercy objective to kidnap/rescue the enemy's children, since you're leaving behind the other colony to die.]]
* The ''Franchise/{{Disgaea}}'' series has the seldom seen "Stage Clear" {{Geo Effect|s}}, which does ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin (though you have to end your turn first). There are also two Instant ''Lose'' Conditions, the "Game Over" Geo Effect (that, naturally, the enemy AI ''will'' make a beeline towards) and, in ''VideoGame/Disgaea2'', the "Game Over“ Dark Sun effect.
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIIRevenantWings'' often requires you to take advantage of this. One particular mission does it ''twice''.
* Many battles in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTactics'' just require defeating one specific enemy. If you can do that, even if you're down to your last man and the next enemy barrage will definitely kill him, you automatically win.
* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyTacticsA2'' you have to follow the judge's rule for the match to get bonuses and sometimes to win at all, but since it doesn't acknowledge a law being broken until the turn it was broken on ends you can break the law without penalty as long as you end the fight on that turn. The game also has multiple kinds of win conditions, depending on the battle. Some fights force you to endure waves of enemies for certain amount of rounds while others require you to weaken a specific enemy. Satisfying the win condition is all you need to do and nothing else matters.
* In all three ''VideoGame/LuminousArc'' games, where defeating XXX is enough to grant you the victory even if you have just one party member left. In two late-game boss battles in ''VideoGame/LuminousArc3'', however, defeating the target without defeating a certain other enemy/enemies on the battlefield would lock you out of the good ending.
* ''VideoGame/RiseOfNations'':
** The game declared victory if you were holding enough territory. So, even if there was all-out war and the balance of power was constantly shifting, if you could keep just enough land for a few minutes (or had the Wonder building that meant instant assimilation), you won immediately.
** If you have the "World Government" (at the end of the Civics tree) tech online, you can skip the several minutes of waiting, bomb a few convenient targets, and then snatch them. World Gov skips the timers entirely.
** Or if you build enough Wonders to get enough Wonder Points. Apparently you can conquer the world with art.
** In the Conquer the World campaigns you can purchase a territory adjacent to another nation's capital which grants you an army, then attack the capital immediately afterwards. If you win, you get the money back and every territory that nation had before you do this!
* ''Franchise/FireEmblem'':
** Seize missions have the objective of capturing the throne. If you do this, the level is cleared and all the enemies that might have been chasing you will just decide you aren't worth the trouble any more. Smart players will kill everyone for the EXP first, though.
** "Defeat Boss" missions end the moment the boss's HP hits 0. Great for {{speed run}}s.
*** This one is actually justified in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemGaiden'''s fight against Rudolf. He explicitly orders his troops to surrender if he is killed by Alm and the Deliverance.
** Then there are the "Defend the Throne/NPC" missions, off course when the designated amount of turns over a handful of {{Redshirt}}s appear and scare the enemy off. In many of these missions, should the player manage to defeat the Boss(es) of the map and/or rout the entire field, the player automatically wins and the mission ends, even if this particular condition wasn't mentioned. It's still smarter to let the turns run out and milk the mooks for EXP, gold, and items though.
* ''VideoGame/GuiltyGear'' features "Instant Kill" attacks that, when successfully executed, end the round in victory. The first game in the series takes this to its logical extreme: if you successfully execute an Instant Kill, you don't win the round, you win the whole damn match.
* In ''VideoGame/EarthBound'', if one of your characters has taken "mortal damage", you still have a chance to finish the battle before he collapses. In fact, ''all'' damage to your characters is applied by having your HP steadily decrease, and the higher your "guts" value, the slower it goes. Which is quite handy when one of the enemies [[MadeOfExplodium explodes on death]]: you'd better kill him last.
* The ''VideoGame/AdvanceWars'' series:
** Aside from the HQ Capture method of victory (particularly important in [=AW1=]'s "Advanced Campaign", where the enemy have overwhelming numbers and you're basically using all your units as sacrifices and bodyguards for one Infantry-loaded APC), many, many campaign missions from ''Black Hole Rising'' onwards have you winning by destroying the enemy's superweapon ''du jour'' (unit-spawning factories, big cannons, thing that heals a lot of units at once, sometimes all three), causing them to retreat and giving you victory ''even when their conventional forces overwhelm you''.
** This is {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d and PlayedForLaughs in ''Sinking Feeling'' where your instant-win condition is to sink 9 enemy battleships before they are repaired. After you manage to sink them, the enemy [=CO=] Lash goes ballistic and sics every unit she has on your troops to wipe them out as payback, only to find out that your troops decided they'd achieved their mission and ''retreated'':
---> '''Lash:''' What else is there to do now?! We attack with all our strength! They've made me mad and now they're gonna pay big time!
---> '''Black Hole Soldier:''' Mistress Lash? The enemy left. It seems they've done what they set out to do and left.
---> '''Lash:''' You've got to be joking! They just sank my boats and took off? I... AM... SO... ANGRY!!!
** Capturing an enemy's HQ is also an instant ''defeat'' condition in a three- or four-way battle; it results in all their units being destroyed, no matter how many they had before.
** ''VideoGame/BattalionWars'' was pretty fond of it too. Certain levels basically end in the player trying to buy enough time to raise a flag.
* ''TabletopGame/{{Warhammer 40000}}'':
** ''VideoGame/DawnOfWar'' has this in the "Control Area" and "Take and Hold" victory conditions. The former involves holding over two-thirds of the Strategic Points, while the latter involves holding half of the harder-to-defend Critical Locations, but in both cases the idea is the same - if the timer runs down to zero, victory is achieved regardless of who has the bigger and stronger army.
** The reverse is possible in ''Dawn of War 2.'' While most games are based on holding points, it is possible to destroy the enemy base before the points all tick away, allowing an outmaneuvered player a (very difficult) alternate win condition. Note that it's mostly difficult because of the toughness of the bases; even with a few heavy tanks and the personification of the god of murder beating down on one, it takes nearly two minutes to destroy an undefended base, which is an eternity in a game whose rounds typically last 10 minutes or less.
** The siege of the SpaceMarine stronghold by the Tau in the Dark Crusade. The objective is to destroy their main Stronghold. Since the Tau Commander, if properly upgraded, is an invisible jet-packed one-man-tank, he can cut the "sieging" and "storming" parts, sneak to the enemy base and raze the building single-handedly from a vantage point (just keep in mind the map is littered with Servo Skulls, who can turn the Commander visible again). That's it. One building. And despite that the whole SM army is still intact they will let out a mighty BAWWWWWWWWWW as their Captain suddenly drops dead, admit defeat, and barrage their own positions with orbital bombing so that they don't fall in your hands. Suckers.
** The same happens when playing Necrons vs Imperial Guard or, if slightly harder to pull off, Space Marines. All you need to do is destroy the Imperial HQ, but access is blocked due to a large river. Conveniently there are some small patches of land and your Necron Lord can teleport. Better yet, he resurrects wherever he is slain and topping even that he can become an immortal Death God for a short while. So you teleport, kill the enemy HQ to death and go elsewhere to kill stuff.
** The Imperial Guard are notorious for their ability to just skip anything in a Stronghold during a campaign. They have the best artillery in the series, and they have a way to pierce the FogOfWar and upgraded Earthshaker shells that can heavily damage whatever it hits. The game even tells you exactly where the objective is on the map. All the Guard player has to do in a Stronghold is fight to within Earthshaker range, and fire the shells until the target is a smoking crater. Entire armies will rout because their main headquarters/figurehead got taken out by precision artillery from a mile away.
* In ''VideoGame/AmongUs'', if an Imposter sabotages the ship's reactor or oxygen supply and it is not repaired in time, all of the Crewmates will instantly die, resulting in an instant victory for the Imposters.
* Victory is pretty much instantaneous in ''VideoGame/BattleForWesnoth'' when you kill all of the enemy leaders, which can get pretty intense when you're struggling against a (money draining) turn limit and trying to farm as much XP as possible.
* In the ''VideoGame/{{Hitman}}'' series, when you get to the escape point for a level, you're home free, even if there were a million cops and security guards shooting at you at the time.
* ''VideoGame/WarcraftIII'':
** The game has the custom map ''VideoGame/DefenseOfTheAncients'': Destroying the World Tree or Frozen Throne is all that counts. It does not matter how many times the enemy Heroes get killed if they succeed in bringing down your main building. Kills and gold help, but if you happen to get a carry into the enemy base while they aren't looking, good game. Balanced in that you have to destroy all buildings in at least one lane before you can kill the Throne.
** In one case, this is actually used for ButThouMust: [[spoiler:Once you acquire Frostmourne in the final human campaign mission, insurmountable waves of enemies begin to spawn, overwhelming your base. Since it's only HeroMustSurvive for Arthas, most players will just abandon the camp and have Arthas go solo the major antagonist necessary to win. It turns out that's exactly what the Lich King intended, and this time the allies stay dead and Arthas is corrupted.]]
** Even if you have enough resources to build 100 bases consisting of all the available buildings, have enough workers to do so 10 at a time, and your army is fully teched with three Level 10 Heroes (and is unstoppable compared to the opponent's), you will lose once all buildings go down. As a result, some players mass Siege Engines or Raiders and send them to sick on the enemy's bases in an "all or nothing" attack.
* In the SNES strategy game ''Liberty or Death'', if neither the American army nor the British army defeat the other side by the year 1820, the game will end automatically with King George III's death. This means that you win automatically if you're playing as the American army ([[{{Inverted}} or instant defeat, if you're playing as the British]]).
* In the ''VideoGame/DynastyWarriors'' series, defeating the enemy leader has this effect. Your own army can be utterly demoralized, all allied officers dead, and your commander on his last legs, but as long as the enemy commander goes down first, you score a win. Very useful if playing the commander.
** ''4'', in particular, had a number of stages that definitely qualified. The biggest ones are the Nanman Campaign, where the regenerating gates and constant morale loss mean that your side's going to get massacred in ''very'' short order if you don't rush to the enemy camp and put down the leader quickly, and Battle of Jian Ye, where you're required to do this '''four times'''.
* ''VideoGame/TheElderScrollsIVOblivion'':
** The game has gates to the hell dimension of Oblivion opening everywhere. The Oblivion worlds are full of enemies, but the best way to win is just to make a break directly to the top of the large tower and grab the Sigil Stone. Which makes sense, because a portal to Oblivion collapses completely once its Sigil Stone is removed, and the player character and any of his or her friends will end up safely on the grass where they originally entered the portal. The daedra that were in that area of Oblivion, no longer have a means of getting from their world to ours and are thus no longer a threat.
** The final mission requires you to escort Martin Septim to the Temple of the One during a huge demonic invasion. To win, all you have to do is get ''yourself'' inside while Martin is alive. Even if he's a whole block behind you and surrounded by enemies, he will enter the Temple as soon as you do, triggering the ending sequence.
* Many four and five-star "Civilian Displacement" missions in ''VideoGame/FableII''. As long as you don't stick around and fight, the baddies won't stick around, either.
* Due to the "war score" mechanic, almost every game Creator/ParadoxInteractive makes has this to one degree or another. It doesn't matter whether or not the enemy has a force that can pummel you into the ground if brought fully to bear (or even if the majority of your army is wiped out); if you can seize an early lead in the war by taking provinces quickly, you'll often come out better off at the peace table than you were before. The later EU III versions work differently, countries consider whether they have armies left to fight. Which can lead to silly situations itself - a huge army will mean that your enemy may not surrender, even if you, e.g., control all of Spain, but Spain has still a huge army on Mallorca, though without any ships to move them.
** Starting in ''VideoGame/CrusaderKings 2'', warscore is calculated based on a variety of factors. Capturing an enemy province means very little if they have 60+ provinces, and beating down their 1500-man army won't even earn you a percentage point if they have a 15,000-man army heading your way. However, if that 15,000-man army is a continent away, or can't actually reach you, it won't be factored in[[note]]which is important when the country you're fighting calls on allies: if it will take them quite some time to reach the battlefield, you still have a chance to win even if they control a vastly more powerful army[[/note]], and defeating a numerically superior force with better tactics is also worth much more warscore than just trumping the enemy with bigger numbers yourself. That being said, if you get to 100% positive or negative warscore, the war is over immediately (your opponent will offer surrender terms immediately, or immediately forces ''you'' to surrender). In the rare event that one side captures the enemy ruler in battle, it immediately sets the warscore to 100%, allowing them to win the war immeidately regardless of any other factors.
** ''VideoGame/{{Stellaris}}'' specifically averts this as well: if you concentrate only on stomping enemy fleets, warscore will plateau very quickly. To win a war, you have to destroy orbital stations, conquer or desolate enemy planets, and prevent them from doing the same[[note]]Warscore increases based on the percentage of damage done to someone's empire as a whole. An empire with a small standing fleet but massive production capability will suffer very little from having their standing fleet destroyed, but much more from having their production base crippled through planetary invasions. The fastest way to increase warscore is always to successfully conquer planets, but for massive empires with multiple colonized planets, each individual planet has less of an effect[[/note]]. However, if you do enough damage to get your warscore high enough to enforce your war demands (which could be anything from 1% to 100%), then the enemy will immediately surrender and declare you victorious, ''unless'' they have enough military might to swing the warscore back in their favor within a couple of in-game months (thus preventing a player from smashing a small patrol fleet and having the enemy surrender when the enemy still has a much bigger fleet farther from the front line). The player ''can'' still enforce demands, however.
* ''VideoGame/AgeOfMythology'' has a particularly funny example in the expansion: as an invincible Titan wreaks havoc in the nearby city, the player's forces and an ally have to survive against the Titan's offspawns and other enemies. In the end, the Titan comes for the player, likely crushing his entire base...but as long as the player fulfills the objective of bringing 3 Rocs (Egyptian Myth units that act as air transports) to the ally, everything is fine and dandy. Another example from the original campaign is a Tug of War mission. When the cart that is being fought over nears the players base, the enemy starts pumping out lots of units from his base... but they give up the second the gates close behind the cart.
* Almost literally in ''VideoGame/{{Ico}}'': you can try to beat the Shadows into submission with your length of wood, but bringing Yorda to the stone gates will prompt her to open them --which instantly dispels all Shadows from the area.
* In the ''VideoGame/WingCommander'' games:
** It's not always necessary to kill every last enemy to win the mission. In fact, in a few missions you get chewed out if you engage in unnecessary bloodshed. This is quite common for the strike missions, particularly against the Kilrathi starbase at the end of Wing Commander I. You can also do this in Secret Missions. Plot a course straight for the Sivar, afterburn towards it and after wasting it get out of dodge. Only need to worry about a few fighters around the Tiger Claw.
** The plot of ''Wing Commander III'' assigns the player to an outdated carrier taking part in various missions while [[spoiler:the confederation is slowly losing the war]] and while bigger ships fight in more important battles. Cue the development of Confed Secret Projects, which can end the war instantly if they can get to the right strategic location. Naturally, [[spoiler:the final mission of the game has Commander Blair sneaking onto the Kilrath capital world with a small strike force to deliver a lethal blow and end the war that's been going on over 50 years (and 3 ''Wing Commander'' titles)]].
* In ''VideoGame/CounterStrike'':
** Counter-Terrorists can win a round in hostage maps by rescuing all of the living hostages on the map. The key word here is ''living''. If things got hairy, you could (as a CT) rescue just one hostage (out of 4 or 5, depending on the map) and let the rest die in the crossfire (or if you are truly sadistic, off them yourself). Once that happens, the [=CTs=] will win the round for rescuing all the living hostages. Terrorist teams often counter this "strategy" by offing all of the hostages at the beginning of the round, turning the round into a deathmatch - though many servers will auto-kick players for killing too many hostages.
** In bomb defusal (DE) maps the bomb being set and going off before it can be deactivated counts as a terrorist victory even if their entire team is dead, which makes sense as the goal is to destroy what needed destroying. There's even an achievement for winning a round while your entire team is dead in ''Source'' and ''Global Offensive''. Conversely, the [=CTs=] automatically win, no matter how many enemies are still alive or if they're the last man standing on their team, if they can disarm the bomb once it's been placed, which makes slightly less sense since there doesn't seem to be anything stopping the Terrorists from just killing the rest of the [=CT=]s and re-arming the bomb.
** [=CTs=] will win the round if the Terrorists fail to plant the bomb in time. Terrorists can have all five members alive and control of the bomb site, the bomb can be a fraction of a second away from being armed, but as long as one CT is alive, even if they are on the other side of the map or not even at their keyboard, the [=CTs=] win. It's not like the [=CTs=] failing to defuse in time where the bomb will detonate - if the bomb is armed just a tenth of a second later, what does it matter? The arbitrary timer results in a loss. The bomb will even arm ''after'' time if it's close enough, but the [=CTs=] already won by having their last man run and hide.
* ''VideoGame/WorldOfWarcraft'' has this as a standard for most boss encounters. It doesn't matter how many adds he has active, how much of the room is on fire, or how many of you have been turned in his mindless, twisted slaves - so long as the boss dies, you win.
** In the Halls of Stones instance, there is a gauntlet called the Tribunal of Ages, where you have to protect Brann Bronzebeard from getting roflstomped by mecha-dwarves as he's tinkering away at the security system. You have to live for 5-7 minutes of constant mobs, that spawn faster and faster and even avoid huge purple bombs of pain and a laser beam. When all of these at once, you can be seconds from achieving victory, have all of your party members die, and yet you still win if Brann manages to subdue the security system and use them to destroy the mecha-dwarves.
** Alterac Valley and Isle of Conquest battlegrounds may also count. The enemy might be swarming your base, attacking your general, but as long as your team manages to kill their general even a split second before yours dies, you win.
** There's also Wintergrasp, where every 2.5 hours the attacking team has 30 minutes to storm the defenders' keep at the north end of the zone. If the attackers break through the three layers of walls and reach the sphere at the center within the time limit, they instantly win. But at the south end of the zone are three towers; if the defenders destroy all of them, they gain a hefty damage boost and 10 minutes are shaved off the attackers' clock. If there are less than ten minutes left, the defenders get an Instant Win.
** Hellfire Assault involves stealing ammo to fire cannons at a fortified gate. So long as you can get enough ammo into the cannons to fire, it doesn't matter if only one person is alive being chased by dozens of enemies - you win.
* Before they were patched out, there were a few ways to get out of bound or otherwise bypass the gates in the remake of ''VideoGame/{{Gauntlet}}'', and then flee for the exit, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_AF57YdRh8 which has been abused mercilessly in at least one speedrun.]]
* ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidPortableOps'' has this in spades. For the most part, it doesn't matter at all if you're detected, as long as you get your ass to the checkpoint, you win. ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidPeaceWalker'' and ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVThePhantomPain'' avoid this by turning off the end-of-level checkpoints during Combat Alert, forcing you to hide if there are still enemies pursuing you; though, in the case of ''MGSV'', getting far enough away from an outpost can instantly end a Combat Alert, and that's usually where you need to be to clear the mission anyway.
* In ''VideoGame/MegaManX2'', the battle with Agile takes place in a room with SpikesOfDoom in the bottom, but if you kill him while in midair on top of them, you won't die when you fall on top of them afterwards. This is the easiest to accomplish by performing a Shoryuken on him.
* ''VideoGame/MegaManX1'' has a boss with a spike pit at the bottom, but in that case, the spikes instantly crumbled as soon as you dealt the final blow. This boss returns in ''VideoGame/MegaManX5'' but now projects HardLight spikes that shut down when you defeat it.
* A minor variation occurs in the ''VideoGame/MegaManBattleNetwork'' and ''VideoGame/MegaManStarForce'' games: When the last enemy on the battlefield is defeated, you lose control of Mega Man during the victory fanfare and are invincible during that time, even if a time bomb explodes a split-second after the last enemy is taken out. Up through ''Star Force 2'', projectiles and bombs would remain on the battlefield in the background of the victory screen, but you'd still be immune to them. However, winning a battle by the skin of your teeth reduces your reward for victory, and in extreme cases will replace your reward with a mercy HP refill.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' games, draining a boss's health enough to make her move onto her next attack pattern will cause all bullets from the current attack to turn into items. The same applies to all on-screen enemy bullets upon reaching a boss. Earlier games would also give you a brief moment of invincibility during the explosion animation at the end of each boss's last Spell Card, though this was removed starting with ''Mountain of Faith'', making it possible [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z9lSSLOLdRA to die after beating the final boss]].
* ''VideoGame/ValkyriaChronicles'' uses this.
** Most missions are won if you seize the enemy's main base. A fun strategy is just running a scout into the base, grenading any troops there, and winning, regardless of the (likely rather poor) tactical situation the rest of your army is in. The game practically ''encourages'' this, since the ''only'' factor affecting your end of mission rating is how quickly you won- kills, casualties, nothing else has any relevance to your score.
** Any and all 'defeat enemy commander' missions. Useful in the games where you can kill Aces to claim their bonuses (especially RandomlyDrops weapons) and get the mission done as soon as possible to save time.
* In the ''VideoGame/HeroesOfMightAndMagic'' series, many missions can be won even after all the player's cities have been captured (which results in the player being given 7 days to capture one or face game over). The quickest strategy of completing Mandate of Heaven in ''Heroes of Might and Magic III'' is to take Castle Darkmoor, build it up as a Necropolis town, leave after getting a sufficiently large army and before the other factions take an interest in capturing it, then head to capture the Hive before the 7-day deadline results in game over.
* In ''VideoGame/LittleBigPlanet'' if you die after activating the Scoreboard (like say, the level creator decided to [[ForTheEvulz place a Trigger Explosive right under the Scoreboard]], connected to a Proximity Switch so it goes boom when you step on the platform), you won't lose the game even if you were on your last life.
* In ''VideoGame/LethalEnforcers 3'', once you or your opponent reach the goal, the area ends, even if there are enemies still standing.
* In VideoGame/BattleStations Clan war, no matter how many members of the opposing team are able and willing to fight or how many defenders you've overrun, the battle is won when one side's fort is sunk.
* In ''VideoGame/AgeOfWonders'':
** Killing a faction's leader unit instantly defeats them. Many single player missions can be completed extremely quickly, simply by slapping haste on a powerful unit and rushing them to the enemy leader, completely bypassing the entire map covered in enemy units. On the other hand, it also makes it ridiculously easy to lose if you aren't careful with your own leader.
** In ''Age of Wonders 2'' Wizards can respawn, so this must be repeated as many times as player has Wizard Towers. If you're threatened, it may give even greater incentive to build them than the main function (magical relay).
* ''VideoGame/AceCombat'':
** The series has various missions where you need to gain a minimum number of points by destroying targets within the time limit. As long as you made the point limit, you could just survive till the time ran out and the mission would be accomplished... if there is no "Mission Update". Some other missions you could just go for the targets and ignore the other enemies to immediately win. Amusingly, a bug in ''VideoGame/AceCombat5TheUnsungWar'' sometimes causes the AI to realize how silly this is and continue attacking you after the mission has ended, even while you're unable to target or track them.
** In ''VideoGame/AceCombat6FiresOfLiberation'', as soon as you destroy the last mission objective, all the other enemy forces instantly disappear. Most other games just have them stop targeting you once the mission is over, though sometimes they glitch out and you have to keep avoiding missiles.
** There's a brief period of time between "Mission Accomplished" and actually completing the mission to be taken to the results screen, and during this time you can still crash into things and fail the mission. [[VideoGame/AirCombat The original game]] avoided this by taking control away and forcing the player to pull up into the air, but ''VideoGame/AceCombat2'' didn't; however, a mission accomplished was still a mission accomplished even if you crashed after control was taken away from you, and the only cost was a deduction from your cash to replace the plane. Missions in which a post-mission accomplished crash would be unavoidable normally, such as the obligatory canyon mission, just had the player immediately de-spawn once the final target is destroyed.
* ''VideoGame/AirforceDelta Strike'' has several of these. One particular stand-out is the canyon mission with the steam-rollers: fly through the gate at the end and it ceases to matter how much health your plane has when you crossed that magical threshold.
* ''VideoGame/TeamFortress2''.
** In the final moments of control point and payload matches, the pushing team is often outnumbered, surrounded, and dying left and right. But once the objective is complete, all opposing players are disarmed and fall prey to those they had been killing just seconds before. Taken to the extreme, one side could be losing the fight badly and still win if [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VafqOW_qu4E someone sneaks by enemy lines]]. In fact, the Spy and Scout have achievements for doing so.
** This happens quite often on Dustbowl. The second capture point in each part falls extremely quickly to a spy or scout sneaking past the defenders if they get too bold and fight too far away from it.
** [[EvilOnlyHasToWinOnce Inverted]] against the player in Mann Vs Machine mode. It doesn't matter how badly you're steamrolling the robots' spawn point, if a single Scoutbot sneaks behind you with the bomb, you're done for. The humans do still have an instant-win condition against the robots, just one that's tough to exploit. If, for example, a wave consists of 30 Soldier bots and unlimited "support" Scoutbots, killing the 30th Soldier bot causes the Scoutbots to drop dead instantly, no matter how much of the field the Scoutbots control.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Freelancer}}'', it is mentioned near the end of the game that Rheinland forces have pretty much obliterated most Kusari resistance and have almost conquered the House. However, once you win the game, everything returns to normal and the Rheinlanders go home. [[spoiler:The Rheinlanders were under the control of the alien Nomads, and once the Nomads were defeated by Trent's activation of the hypergate, their control broke.]]
* In ''VideoGame/{{Z}}'', the objective was to destroy the opponent's fortress by a) direct assault b) destroying all of the enemy robots or c) getting a unit inside the enemy fort. You could have a strong army and most of the map claimed, but it's all for nothing if a bunch of snipers sneak past your defenses, take out the turrets on your fort, and casually stroll in.
* In the first few missions in ''VideoGame/{{Thief}}'', if you're playing on the easiest difficulty, the mission ends a few seconds after you finish the objectives - you don't need to escape from the place you're robbing. This has some absurd consequences: for example, in mission 3, "Down in the Bonehoard", if you time it right, you can grab the MacGuffin, then jump down a very deep pit... and somehow survive, since the mission ends in victory before you can reach the bottom and die.
* In the ''VideoGame/TotalWar'' games:
** When assaulting an enemy settlement, you win by either destroying the entire enemy army or by holding the settlement's central plaza for a certain amount of time (which generally translates to having at least one of your guys within the plaza's boundaries and no enemies). Even if there's a ginormous enemy reinforcement army approaching, you will still win as long as it fails to reach the plaza in time to disrupt the timer.
** Standard battles also have timers. It is entirely possible to have a single unit of some kind left during a snow/rainstorm hide out waaaay at the corner of the map, and win due to time out. (In clear weather it's simple enough to just search the forests then the corners, but in snow/rain visibility falls to nothing and so long as you turn off the AI engagement the enemy can walk right by you and not notice you.) In campaign, this only works on defense.
** In the campaign maps, it doesn't matter if the opposing faction has several huge armies coming to curbstomp you, the minute you take out their last city they're instantly wiped out, since presumably [[WeCannotGoOnWithoutYou they're so distraught by the loss of their leadership, they can't do much of anything, let alone reestablish the nation]]. In some games as armies will stick around to cause misery to you, but because they have no source of income they have to act fast to regain any kind of foothold.
** In ''VideoGame/RomeTotalWar: Barbarian Invasion'', destroying a barbarian's last city will spawn several armies as the group leave in search for new lands... normally yours.
** Averted in ''VideoGame/TotalWarWarhammerII'''s Eye of the Vortex campaign. Completing the final ritual activates The Final Battle, where the other factions gang up on you - and despite the deck being stacked in your favour, this can still be a hard fight. (This battle itself is an example, being a TimedMission you win by running down the clock, justified by siezing control of the Vortex and ending the battle by fiat.) Conversely, if another faction completes their ritual first, you automatically join the other factions in a last-ditch effort to break their hold on the Vortex.
* XMoto is a 2D moto racing game where you need to avoid touching wreckers or touching walls with your head. Most levels are user-contributed.. and the default game rules play the trope straight.
** Some levels play it too straight to the extent of lampshading - like a "Jump to Death" level where you can save time by doing an unsurvivable jump with a slim chance of touching level goal before dying.
** Some levels avert the trope by setting alternative victory condition of "having done X" where check for "X is done" is only performed when you are in relative safety.
** Some levels subvert the trope by making teleports that look like level goal.. It is not too dishonest - these points usually have to be reached anyway, but going headlong down the cliff doesn't work here.
** ''VideoGame/{{Trackmania}}'' titles do the same thing. Your time is recorded when you reach the finish, even though the track ''ends'' there and you usually fly off into oblivion or faceplant something solid immediately after crossing the finish line. Some track builders purposely place a ramp or obstacle there to make the inevitable post-finish crash all the more spectacular.
* In ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty: VideoGame/ModernWarfare 2'', a player that gets a KillStreak of 25 can call down a Tactical Nuke onto the map, which instantly wins the rounds for his team. This happens even if the rest of his team are complete bullet sponges, and would otherwise lose the round collectively.
* The Cavern of Transcendence trial in ''VideoGame/CityOfHeroes'' becomes incredibly easier if you have a teleporter who also has stealth. You have 90 minutes to complete the mission, much of it taken up fighting your way through tunnels to the door of the cavern, then a huge roomful of monsters between the door and the eight obelisks that have to be clicked at the same time. A stealth porter can get quickly through the tunnels to the door and then teleport the team. Once inside the chamber, the porter can then run to each obelisk and teleport a team member to it. Once they are clicked simultaneously, trial over, go team! It's entirely possible to complete the entire thing without having to engage in any combat, and often then only if a spawn of monsters is too close to the cavern door when you enter to allow the team to wait for the porter to do his thing. This is even ''easier'' in ''VideoGame/CityOfVillains'', as Stalkers have access to Hide at level one. In most non {{Escort Mission}}s, you only have to clear out the last room, and even then that's only for newspaper missions. It's balanced out a bit by the fact that ambushes can see through Hide... while escorts can't.
* ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog''
** ''VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006''. In Crisis City, Sonic is being chased by a tornado made of fire, yet hitting the end of the level causes Sonic to stop and do his victory pose while his score tallies. As this happens, the aforementioned tornado is still visible in the background, and it just stops chasing Sonic for no discernible reason. [[LetsPlay/SonicTheHedgehog2006 "I don't feel like chasing you any more."]]
** ''VideoGame/SonicAdventure2'': When fighting The Egg Golem as Eggman, it's possible to kill the Golem while falling to your death in quicksand.
* Possible in ''VideoGame/RockBand'':
** All you have to do to pass a song is finish it, but if somebody fails out, the band has to save them within a reasonable window of time or everyone fails. This can happen twice, and the third time is an inevitable band failure... unless it happens close enough to the end for the song to complete (''including'' the second or two it takes to transition from the song's end to the score screen) before that. It happens when a Big Rock Ending is involved, as the moment the Big Rock Ending hits, EVERYONE that was failed out is revived and the performance meter is removed.
** Also obvious in any song in the older games (Rock Band 2 and earlier), where the crowd would boo your band loudly, until you hit the invisible point that ended the song (which is usually well after the last actual note of the song). Then they would suddenly switch to cheering.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Scribblenauts}}'' you'll frequently watch Maxwell go through his death animation or disappear down a bottomless pit, but it's alright, because he touched the Starite before dying, so the victory screen pops up. It holds true in one of the puzzle levels of world 4: You have to destroy everything to make the Starite appear, but you can also just use a [[ThereIsNoKillLikeOverkill nuke or something similar]] and hope to touch the Starite before losing the level.
--> [[http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/zero-punctuation/969-Scribblenauts "Even if I fell into the lava, if I had the star I'd still win, with an agonizing flesh-vaporizing victory dance."]]
* ''VideoGame/AgeOfEmpiresIII'': In the mission to steal the Spanish treasure fleet, the Spanish can't take ships back, so it's entirely possible, having five of the six ships required, to win with a tiny army even if the Spanish have destroyed your colony entirely.
* ''Franchise/MassEffect''
** A lot of ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'' fights against major enemies (not simply bigger enemies, but strong enemies that are part of the plot) will include many other enemies that you can forget about. The moment the major enemy is killed, the battle is over. Also, on the final mission when you have to [[spoiler:escort a tech expert through a series of pipes.]] Hitting the last switch in the mission ends it instantly (triggering a cutscene). Regardless of how many enemies are still present.
** In ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', during the climactic battle at the end of Priority: Tuchanka, all that matters is [[SummonBiggerFish activating the maw hammers]]. It doesn't matter if you're arse deep in [[SmashMook Brutes]] when the second hammer goes down - the moment that hits, [[SandWorm Kalros]] appears, [[CoolVersusAwesome kills the Destroyer-class Reaper]], and presumably you and your allies withdraw in the chaos. On a storyline level, this is what everyone hopes for the Crucible project - since the Reapers cannot be defeated in a straight fight, due to all their advantages, the goal is to complete the Crucible, find the Catalyst, and thereby kill the Reapers without needing to bleed the entire galaxy to death in a straight-out war. That's the theory, anyway; nobody's quite sure how the Crucible works or what it will do. [[spoiler:As it turns out, it's a lot more complicated than that - the Crucible's main purpose is to upgrade the Reaper's controlling intelligence, the Catalyst, so it can handle solutions to its purpose that are less bloody than "kill and/or enslave everything", allowing you to choose one. Still counts; successfully deploying a completed Crucible, unless you pick Refusal, allows you to end the Reaper war by wiping out all synthetic life including the Reapers, taking control of the Reapers yourself, or kicking off TheSingularity and leaving them with no ''motive'' to continue slaughtering people.]]
* ''VideoGame/BattleIsle''. If you manage to sneak an infantry unit into the enemy's base, you win regardless of how much troops each side has remaining. And, of course, vice versa. In some scenarios, this is the ''only'' feasible way to win.
* ''VideoGame/{{Jumpman}}''. The goal is to collect all bombs in a stage. Even a [[OneHitPointWonder small fall]] will cause you to plummet to the bottom of the screen and die on impact, except if this plummet happens to pass through the last bomb; this counts as a stage victory.
* In ''VideoGame/HapHazard'', collecting the last bomb will end the level with a victory. Doing so also adds two seconds to your clock, which is ''absolutely necessary'' in order to complete the game within the time limit (not that this is [[GuideDangIt specified in-game anywhere]]).
* In ''The WesternAnimation/BugsBunny Crazy Castle,'' in both the NES and Game Boy versions, if an enemy kills Bugs, he can still beat the level with no penalty if his death animation collides with the final carrot of the level.
* ''VideoGame/{{Starcraft}}'':
** One of the early Terran levels in the first game requires you to survive for a set amount of time. You can still win even if all you're completely overrun and all your units and headquarters are destroyed, as long as you take one random building and fly it to the corner of the map. In ''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2XCxnKKjXY Starcraft II]]'', there are also three missions where, after satisfying the instant win condition, you get to bypass the mostly intact Protoss base between your forces and the artifact fragment. On two of these, this is the most likely way to finish the mission.
** In a few ''VideoGame/StarCraftII'' missions where the main objective is ''not'' "wipe out all enemy forces" (specifically, some of the Tal'darim missions), the mission can be won by wiping out all enemy forces, at which point Matt Horner calls in to let you know the enemy is in retreat. Cue victory screen.
** One mission in ''Heart of the Swarm'' has the protoss sending ships and escorts to send word out to the Golden Armada, and Kerrigan having to take them out to prevent that. The ships are launched from docking bays at regular intervals; should the docking bays be destroyed, you win on the spot.
* Collecting the last star in ''VideoGame/GliderPRO'' makes you a winner, even if something else kills you at the same time.
* ''VideoGame/DefenderOfTheCrown'':
** In the original game, the only requirement to win the war and become king is to have all three Norman castles under your control. While uncommon, it's possible to win without possessing every territory, and, although rare, win with one or even ''both'' of the other Saxons still in possession of their home castles.
** In the very unlikely event that one of the other Saxons claims all three Norman castles, ''he'' becomes king, which actually leads to a NonstandardGameOver: the game chides your efforts as "less than spectacular" and you're exiled to the outer Hebrides in Scotland.
* In ''VideoGame/NetStorm: Islands at War'', the objective is to immobilize the opponent's High Priest, capture him with a transport unit and bring him back to your island to be sacrificed. While doing so, the only units that must survive are your own High Priest and the transport while carrying the enemy priest, and the only building that must remain standing is the sacrificial altar.
* In [[ShootEmUp sailing sections]] of ''VideoGame/{{Dubloon}}'', reaching destination causes every monster at the screen to go out with a [[strike:[[OutWithABang bang]]]] poof of smoke.
* A mission is only finished in ''VideoGame/AlienSwarm'' when all surviving marines are in the exit area. Whether they're on fire, parasited, surrounded by shield bugs or up to their knees in swarm.
* In most fighting games, once your opponent hits 0 life, any attacks still on screen are nullified. (In some games, you ''can'' be killed by on-screen attacks, in which case the round is a double KO.)
* In ''VideoGame/{{Homeworld}}'' each side owns a single Mothership and the Instant-Win Condition is to destroy the enemy one. Whether it happens a mere second before the enemy fleet destroys ''your'' Mothership doesn't matter.
* There is an Aztec mission in the ''VideoGame/AgeOfEmpiresII'' expansion, ''The Conquerors'', where you have to destroy the wonder in Tenochtitlan which the Spanish are somehow using to control the Aztec populace. It is possible, at least on lower difficulties, to gather all your starting units, ignore any and all enemy attacks, and march straight up to it and destroy it. You win the mission when that happens, never mind that your tiny force is surrounded in a large, well-garrisoned enemy city.
* In ''VideoGame/ZorkZero'', the [[UnwinnableJokeGame Double Fanucci]] card game can be won instantly if you undertrump three cards after the Jester discards a trebled fromp. In fact, this is the ''only'' way to win, inasmuch as the rules are never stated in the game or instructions and are impossible to deduce from [[MakesJustAsMuchSenseInContext the Jester's commentary]] (i.e. [[{{Calvinball}} there aren't any]]). (In an oddly-placed bit of realism, the game does allow some way to block this - it isn't automatically possible to ''do'' three undertrumps in a row following the discard - but the Jester isn't trying to stop it.)
* In ''VideoGame/ResidentEvil5'' When fighting against both Wesker and Jill Valentine, all you have to do is survive for 7 minutes. Even if you're on the cusp of death, once those 7 minutes go by, Wesker leaves. You still have to break Jill out of her mind controlled state, but that's easier than fighting a guy who can dodge a shotgun shot to the face at point-blank range.
* An interesting version occurs in the time travel RTS ''VideoGame/{{Achron}}''. One of the main win conditions for multiplayer maps is you win if all attack and build capable enemy units are destroyed at any point in time at or before the present and the other win condition is if that destruction falls off the timeline (becoming permanent). If the latter win condition is used then there is no way for the opponent to change what's happened because the events have become permanent but if the former is used you can win in the present even if your whole base has been destroyed in the past.
* ''VideoGame/{{Aerobiz}}'': Regardless of size or overall passenger totals, the first airline to meet all the goals, wins. This can lead to some odd situations where a large airline, dominating the passenger totals, profits by big margins, loses to a much smaller airline that happen to dominate their home region and expand into three otherwise ignored regions.
* In the Razor Rendezvous mission of ''VideoGame/RogueSquadron II'', the mission is automatically completed once the Star Destroyer is destroyed even if you did so by crashing into the bridge Arvel Crynyd style.
* One of the victories in a standard ''VideoGame/WorldOfTanks'' random battle is capturing the enemy base. Even if you are alone in capturing, most or all of your team is dead, you have one hit point left, as long as you are in their base for the required time, you win, even if there is no way you could possibly hold the base. In the Assault mode, the match ends instantly in a defending team win once the timer hits zero, even if the attacking team was one second from capping the base and the last defending tank is hiding in a corner of the map with 10 HP.
* In ''VideoGame/BridgeBuilderSeries'' games, if the last vehicle reaches its destination, the level is completed, regardless if the bridge was single-use only.
* ''VideoGame/GrimGrimoire'': You can theoretically end the HoldTheLine missions early by destroying enemy runes, but this becomes practically impossible in higher difficulties.
* In single player mode of ''VideoGame/MarioParty 9'', you go against either one or two AI characters on the board and losing to them is an instant loss to you, even if you finish in 2nd. However, some boards put you with one or two friendly AI characters and if those characters win the game instead of the evil characters, you still clear the board, even though you didn't win.
* In ''VideoGame/TheGodfather 2'', an enemy Family is defeated once you take over their Compound. There will be no [[TheRemnant Remnant]] running around trying to take back territory, unlike the first game; all will be KilledOffForReal even if you did not use the kill conditions. Balanced in that you need to take all their fronts first to unlock the Compounds.
* In the NES classic ''VideoGame/BionicCommando'', stages are considered completed when the reactor is destroyed. Doesn't matter if you're swarmed by enemy soldiers, a huge guard drone is bearing down on you, or a cyborg soldier is slapping you around with his own grappling hook; shoot out the power core and the level is won, with all defenders disappearing upon its destruction.
* ''VideoGame/SurgeonSimulator2013'' does this with impunity. Ribs completely shattered? Lungs on the floor? Stomach detached? Down to double digits of blood left? It's instant victory when you slap the replacement heart in the patient's chest! The game even lampshades it:
--> "Looks fine to me. [[BadLiar I'm sure he'll live.]]"
* ''VideoGame/{{jubeat}}'' has a variation of this. Once you hit 700,000 points (out of 1 million), you've cleared the song, though the song will keep going to the end. If you really want to, you can goof off or rest once you hit 700k rather than aiming for a higher score.
* In both ''Videogame/BattleZone1998'' games, destroying the enemy [[MobileFactory Recycler]] will result in an instant win, as the Recycler is irreplaceable and is the only unit capable of building the [[WorkerUnit Scavengers and Constructors]]. In Instant Action mode, the AI will instantly win if the player is killed - as the player is actually commanding from the field (rather than being a NonEntityGeneral) while in one of the {{Hover Tank}}s, [[HumongousMecha walkers]], or in a command bunker, dying is a very real possibility if the [[EjectionSeat ejection system]] fails to take you back to safety. Enabling [[DeathIsASlapOnTheWrist the respawn option]] will prevent this from happening, however.
* In most battles in ''VideoGame/DevilSurvivor'' and [[VideoGame/DevilSurvivor2 its sequel]], victory calls for defeating all enemies. In major boss battles, however, once you kill the boss, all other enemies will disappear.
* In MultiplayerOnlineBattleArena games, at the end of the day the only building that matters is the throne/ancient/nexus/whatever name the game calls the central building. Once a team manages to take down the defenses to this building, one sneak attack on the base by someone that can easily move about the map and/or quickly destroy buildings (commonly referred to as ''backdooring'') is all that is needed to win, regardless of any money/experience/kill advantages the opposing team has accumulated. A (in)famous and recent example is the last game of [[VideoGame/DefenseOfTheAncients The International 3]], where, in the final game of the entire tournament, [[spoiler:Alliance won the game by never fighting [=NaVi=] head-on, and instead using the teleportation abilities of Nature's Prophet and Wisp to destroy [=NaVi=]'s base while the remaining heroes (most importantly, s4's Puck) stalled and then cancelled teleports, preventing an effective defense]].
* In the military battles of ''VideoGame/ExitFate'', victory is achieved by taking out the army leader - once they fall, all their troops call for retreat, so you can snatch up a desperate victory just by aiming for their group. (Although not defeating the other units will result in a reduced efficiency score and likely net you a worse reward.) The same thing applies to your army, so keeping your protagonist out of direct fire is a good idea.
* In ''VideoGame/GenjuuRyodan'', capturing the main building (usually the castle) of the opponent's side instantly clears the map which is being played in.
* VS. battles in the ''VideoGame/MagicalDrop'' series can be won either through the traditional method of outlasting your opponent, or by scoring enough points to meet the point quota, at which point you win even if you're one balloon-shift away from getting wiped out.
* ''VideoGame/FrozenSynapse'': A number of missions involve eliminating one specific target, which is lucky if you have a shotgun vatform running around the back while the rest of your troops get blown to pieces; even if your last unit goes down, taking out the objective wins you the mission if that happens first.
* Destroying all targets in a mission or destroying a boss in ''VideoGame/CopyKitty'' destroys all remaining enemies and enemy projectiles. Even if Boki still manages to get killed, it still counts as a win. Reaching a wave in Endless Mode that's a multiple of 5 also allows the player to start again from there even if they get killed right before the wave transistion.
* In the ''VideoGame/SilentScope'' games, a headshot instantly kills the boss regardless of how much health he has left. As bosses got more durable and/or harder to hit, the importance of headshots grew in importance; some (Cobra, Monica, The Collector, Sho & Kane, Shadow, Charly) are next to impossible to beat any other way.
* ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtFreddys'': As long as the player can make it to 6 AM, they will win. It doesn't matter if the power has gone out, all four animatronics are on the loose, and Freddy is in the middle of playing his jingle right outside the door before he kills you; 6 AM means a guaranteed victory. The later games take it even further by enabling you to win even if an animatronic is in the middle of jumping at your face to kill you. Generally, this is justified by Free-Roaming Mode only being enabled from midnight to 6 AM (i.e. your shift), so when the clock ticks over, they can no longer move.
** ''VideoGame/UltimateCustomNight'' provides the series' one subversion of this trope: Funtime Foxy. Funtime Foxy's M.O. is to jumpscare you if you aren't looking at his camera at the start of a specific hour (his 'showtime'), and if that hour is 6 AM, Funtime Foxy can still jumpscare you if you aren't watching him.
* A fanmod named ''VideoGame/FiveNightsAtVault5'' will instantly turn off all robots and alarms and clear off all of your radiation if you successfully reach 6 AM, regardless of whether your radiation was about to reach lethal levels and a robot was in the middle of charging at you.
* Besides the normal win condition of reaching the finish line in ''VideoGame/BoardGameOnline'', there are two other ways to win:
** Escaping the [[TempleOfDoom Pyramid]] with the Pharaoh's treasure.
** Combining the Sausage, Eggs, Bacon, and Spam items to make the English breakfast.
* In ''VideoGame/YuGiOhCapsuleMonsterColiseum'', destroying the Symbol game piece will net a win regardless of how many monsters are left on either side. You can also win by destroying all of your opponent's monsters.
* In ''VideoGame/{{Nectaris}}'', if one army captures the other's base camp, they win the battle instantly. The usual way to attempt this is to load an infantry unit into a Pelican and fly it past enemy lines.
* Happens in classical first person shooters such as ''VideoGame/{{Doom}}''. Sometimes it's explained as the LevelGoal being an elevator, an exit door, a self-destruct switch (''VideoGame/DukeNukem3D''), but then there are situations where the LevelGoal is a lonely switch in the middle of a room, and it's not explained how pressing it lets you instantly escape from a giant horde of monsters surrounding you on all sides.
* Some mission and quest challenges in ''VideoGame/BillyVsSnakeman'' have "automatic jutsu victory": if you use a specific jutsu, you will win it no matter how poor your successes are. It's not stated outright, but there's either a logical thought to it (A horde of enemies attacking everywhere? This calls for a clone jutsu!) or the description references the solution in some other way (The enemy says his attack goes to eleven? How about [[Film/ThisIsSpinalTap "Rock On: Spinal Tap"]]?). There's also the Flying Thunder God Jutsu, which allows you to complete one non-quest challenge with a difficulty not higher than 100 each day.
* In the single-player campaign for ''VideoGame/TelepathTactics'', a few maps will grant you an instant win the moment you move [[TheHero Emma]] to a certain space, which can make them trivial if you stock up on adrenaline pills. This is a little weird in the mines entrance battle, where logically any remaining troops should be nipping at your heels in the next battle. DecapitatedArmy is also in effect for most {{Boss Battle}}s.
* ''VideoGame/HaloReach'':
** In the level "Long Night of Solace", destroying the Phantoms attacking Anchor 9 will cause all the other enemy starfighters to flee, even if they still outnumber you.
** Several levels, like "Exodus", are won by pressing a button, so a clever player can sneak past a lot to activate the device even if a horde of enemies are surrounding it.
** In the level [[spoiler:"The Pillar of Autumn"]], destroying [[spoiler:the Covenant battlecruiser]] will end the level regardless of how many Phantoms are surrounding you. On the more punishing difficulties like [[HarderThanHard Legendary or Mythic]], destroying ''only'' [[spoiler:the cruiser]] becomes the only reliable way to complete the level.
* Some missions in ''VideoGame/MercsOfBoom'' can be won even if you're down to a single surviving merc with 1 HP. If the win conditions are met (e.g. survive for 5 turns), your still-standing mercs will start cheering, even if they're surrounded by enemies about to slaughter them.
* In ''[[VideoGame/PacificFleet Atlantic Fleet]]'', you can win a battle even if there are 5 torpedoes bearing down on your ship and will strike you at the end of your turn, as long as you sink all enemy ships before that or force them to withdraw. The battle ends immediately without completing the turn.
* In ''VisualNovel/ZeroTimeDilemma'', if you win the coin flip at the beginning of the game, Zero honors his deal, releases you all, and the credits roll. You win the game with zero effort on your part.
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' has every dungeon use boss battles and they sometimes have the boss summon backup. If you can defeat the boss, you automatically win while the backup just vanishes into thin air.
* ''VideoGame/Left4Dead'' has safe houses that are basically level goals. As long as one survivor makes it inside and shuts the door, the survivors live to see the next level, even if 3 of them were killed. Same rule applies for reaching the escape vehicle. The sequel uses the same rules.
* Most of the boss fights in ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime'' will be instant victory to you, regardless if the boss's summoned help were left standing. While the same rule applies in ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime2Echoes'' and ''VideoGame/MetroidPrime3Corruption'', two boss fights in the former take place in hazardous areas where there's no safe zone to recharge in, making it possible to kill ThatOneBoss and then [[ShootTheShaggyDog die to the toxic atmosphere afterwards]].
* [[https://www.pcgamer.com/galactic-civlizations-2-war-report-part-one/ This]] LetsPlay of ''VideoGame/GalacticCivilizations II'' describes an attempt to wriggle out of a deathtrap via Technology Victory:
--> This will result in many research centers, and a plummeting economy, but we'll be dead or Gods in thirty weeks, so what are the loan sharks going to do? Pray threateningly?
* ''VideoGame/AgeOfEmpires'':
** In the original game, there are two ways to complete a mission: complete the goal that the game tells you to, or destroy everything belonging to all opposing teams, thus destroying any opposition, including units, buildings, and even just walls. Logically, this makes some kind of sense, as there's no way you can't be the first to complete the goal if you are the only one left, but in non time-based missions where your goal is to build a wonder (for example) destroying your opposition and allies does not help you build a wonder.
** The sequel sidesteps this by including placeholder units in unreachable corners of the map, so the player can never technically wipe out a given side and are forced to complete the scenario objectives. One mission in particular is known for having the placeholder not quite hidden well enough, allowing it to be killed, preventing a massive army from spawning later.
* ''VideoGame/CityBuildingSeries'':
** In ''{{VideoGame/Pharaoh}}'', some missions have vastly reduced requirements, such as having a certain population and completed monuments. Meaning the city could be an urban hellhole of plague-infested slums bereft of basic sanitation, food, or maintenance services rife with criminals, enemy armies can be rampaging throughout the land, but the second you send the tomb is ready for its occupant you can hightail it out of there.
** In ''VideoGame/ZeusMasterOfOlympus'', colony missions only require you to set aside a certain amount of goods for the parent city, meaning you only need to set up a few industries and a few dozen people to operate them. It's possible to simplify this even further by asking allies for the goods in question before sending them off, and the colony will continue to produce goods in subsequent levels.
* ''VideoGame/FZero'' does this to a ridiculous degree. You finish the race as soon as you cross the finish line on the final lap no matter what condition your vehicle is in. This means you can lose all of your energy and slide across the finish line while exploding. As long as you don't fully explode before crossing the line, you can win and then die immediately afterwards.
* ''VideoGame/AncientEmpires'': Killing the enemy king in the first game counts as a win, even if the enemy still has a lot of units. This is no longer the case in the sequel, where commanders are a unit that can be produced from castles (albeit only one at a time and for an escalating cost), so the condition is instead capturing all enemy castles.
* Several missions in ''VideoGame/XCOM2'' require you to rescue (or capture) a VIP: as soon as the VIP is on the Skyranger, you win, even if your squad gets wiped out afterwards (though most players will consider that a lose condition). The same is true of the Blacksite missions, which involve getting a specific piece of physical intel back to the Avenger: as soon as the soldier carrying it is on the Skyranger, victory is assured.
* In the VideoGame/{{BYOND}} Game ''VideoGame/SpaceStation13'':
** The traitor can be on the shuttle, surrounded by security officers and high personnel with tasers, and (if the objective doesn't require solitary escape) they will win the round when the shuttle leaves.
** If the entire nuke team (usually 3-5 people) or the wizard dies, the crew instantly wins. Even if they use the 'suicide' verb.
* In ''VideoGame/UltimateChickenHorse'', your goal is to reach a flag in the level while dodging hazards, but as long as you reach that flag you win. Even if you were getting shot full of arrows after reaching the flag that knocks you away (and possibly even off a ledge) if still counts, and likewise you still get victory points if you die but your corpse manages to reach the flag (although the points awarded are not as much as reaching the flag alive).
* ''VideoGame/FTLFasterThanLight'' ends the game in victory if you defeat the Rebel Flagship. Even if half of your ship is on fire, the other half is oxygen-deprived, one more hit would take your ship out, and your sole remaining crewmember has less than 10% of their health left. ''Even if [[MutualKill your ship is in the middle of blowing up]]'', so long as the Flagship runs out of hull integrity before the game summons the GameOver screen. Justified, in that [[KeystoneArmy the Rebel Flagship holds the top command of the Rebel Fleet]] and destroying it deals a major blow to their command structure, and the overall goal of the game is to defeat the Rebels by blowing up said Flagship, not necessarily to save your own hides.
* The Assault gamemode in ''VideoGame/UnrealTournament'' and ''VideoGame/UnrealTournament2004'' consists of two phases: in the first round, the Red team assumes the attacking role, and the Blue team the defending role. After the first phase ends (either by objective completion or time running out), both teams switch roles, with the Blue team attacking and the Red team defending. In this round, the Blue team wins if they complete more objectives than the Red team did in the first phase, in case the first phase ended with the Red team not managing to complete every objective, regardless of time left for the objectives to be completed.
* ''VideoGame/MirrorsEdge'' ends with Faith climbing to the top of the Shard (which at this point is swarming with cops chasing after her to take her down) to rescue Kate before she's taken away via helicopter. When she gets to the roof [[spoiler: she finds a good half-dozen armed guards and Jackknife hauling Kate into the helicopter. After kicking Jackknife out of the helicopter and crashing it, all the armed guards on the roof that would've gunned down Faith and Kate mysteriously vanish, and instead of dealing with the logistics of Faith escaping from the top of a skyscraper swarming with armed officers while escorting a far less agile Kate, the game decides to just have the two embrace and roll credits while glossing over their escape off-screen.]]
* ''VideoGame/EnergyBreaker'': the usual goal for a battle is "defeat all the enemies", but some have "ally makes it to goal" or "defeat the boss" as additional goals, which will clear the battle regardless of how many enemies are left.
* In ''VideoGame/KillerQueen'', there are three ways for a team to win: Economic Victory (have a full stash of berries in the base), Military Victory (kill the enemy's queen three times), and Snail Victory (ride the snail all the way to the team's goal). As soon as any of these three conditions are met, the team wins, even if their enemy has a blatant advantage on the other two conditions (example: your team wins by Economic Victory with one queen life left and about to be double-pronged by an enemy Warrior and Queen and the snail just pixels away from the enemy's goal).
* In ''VideoGame/WreckingCrew '98'', pulling off a 9x chain combo will unleash a "Kanbank" attack, which is a giant falling Bowser crate that [[OneHitKill OHKOs]] the opponent and can't be dodged.
* ''Videogame/AIWarFleetCommand'' and ''AI War 2'' need you to kill the titular AI to win, but it's the ''only'' opponent that really needs to die. Even if there's still rampaging precursors, space pirates, a GrayGoo infestation, metal-eating MegaMicrobes and an indestructible fleet-munching behemoth all running around the galaxy, if the AI Overlord is dead, you still win. (In fact, [[GodzillaThreshold it might be in your interest to keep these things running around]] during your war with the AI.)
* The various ''VideoGame/PunchOut'' games, in addition to the instant ''knockdown'' methods against every boxer, often have secret outright instant K.O. tricks you can use to quickly win matches. Glass Joe can be taken down instantly if you counter his taunt either with precise timing or with a Star Punch, Piston Honda goes down in one shot if you counter the Honda Rush with a body blow, and King Hippo's first knockdown is also a guaranteed knockout. These were all carried over to the Wii version, with additional ones such as being able to take out Bald Bull by countering his charge with a three-star punch (but only if you've not taken a hit), as well as landing a star punch against Mr. Sandman after his [[DesperationAttack Berserk attack]].
* Several bosses in the ''VideoGame/StreetsOfRage'' games will have minions summoned in for backup. Beating the boss is the only way to clear the stage, so any enemies left alive either [[ScrewThisImOuttaHere simply walk away]] or they die with the boss.
* ''VideoGame/TheJackboxPartyPack'': In ''Monster Seeking Monster'', if the Zombie manages to [[TheVirus infect]] every other player in the game by the end of the last night, it triggers a ZombieApocalypse, and the Zombie wins regardless of how many points they have at the end of the game.
* ''VideoGame/CreeperWorld'':
** Creeper World 3 and Particle Fleet have warp inhibitors and Precursors respectively. All enemy structures in a level are destroyed once either structure is gone.
** Creeper World 4 adds Hold and Reclaim objectives, where the player can win by reclaiming a percentage of land from the Creeper or keeping it out of somewhere for a set time.
* In ''VideoGame/MutantFootballLeague'', a team will be forced to forfeit if all 5 of their quarterbacks or Line Bashers are killed. Injuring the last two quarterbacks on the team will also result in forfeit during their possession of the ball, as the game mechanically recognizes that the offensive line doesn't have any viable quarterbacks on the field. You can also force a forfeit if all eligible receivers are killed, but this is a lot harder and more rare because most teams have about ‘’16’’ between the running backs, wideouts, and “bruise receivers” (tight ends) on the roster and WRs often don’t take many hits before they go down.
[[/folder]]

* ''TabletopGame/Dominion'' can have a version of this depending on the cards currently in use. If you can manage to draw two King’s Courts and three Bridges in one hand, you can pick up all eight Provinces (in a two-player match), more than likely earning you enough points to win outright.

* ’’TabletopGame/Dominion’’ can have a version of this depending on the cards currently in use. If you can manage to draw two King’s Courts and three Bridges in one hand, you can pick up all eight Provinces (in a two-player match), more than likely earning you enough points to win outright.

->'''''"Checkmate!"'''''

** The [[VideoGame/PokemonSunAndMoon Generation VII]] set Lost Thunder has three cards depicting Unown, all of them allowing the player to win the game if some difficult condition was met: The group spelling out [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Unown_(Lost_Thunder_92) "MISSING"]] will win you the game if your opponent's Lost Zone contains 12 or more Supporter cards, the group spelling out [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Unown_(Lost_Thunder_90) "DAMAGE"]] will win you the game if your Pokémon collectively have 660 or more HP of damage sustained at a time (including the group itself), and the group spelling out [[https://bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wiki/Unown_(Lost_Thunder_91) "HAND"]] will win you the game if you have 35 or more cards in your hand.

* In ''VideoGame/MutantFootballLeague'', a team will be forced to forfeit if all 5 of their quarterbacks or Line Bashers are killed. Injuring the last two quarterbacks on the team will also result in forfeit during their possession of the ball, as the game mechanically recognizes that the offensive line doesn't have any viable quarterbacks on the field. You can also force a forfeit if all eligible receivers are killed, but this is a lot harder and more rare because most teams have about ‘’16’’ between the running backs, wideouts, and “bruise receivers” (tight ends) on the roster.