History Main / ScriptBreaking

See also ButThouMust, OnlyIdiotsMayPass and StupidityIsTheOnlyOption. For the idea of "breaking" a script in the writing process, see: UsefulNotes/ScriptLifeCycle. The polar opposite of this trope is DevelopersForesight. Often coincides with SequenceBreaking, which deals with the intended sequence of gameplay elements rather than the logical cohesion of the narrative, since breaking one of these tends to break the other as well.

* ''VideoGame/HorizonZeroDawn'': There's some Old Ones armour that is arguably the best armour in the game, and the quest to unlock it is one of the first you'll receive after you leaving the starting area. However the game doesn't expect you to find the final keys to the puzzle till very nearly the final dungeon. It is possible by abusing the game's geometry and a few invisible walls to leap over the fortress guarding Carja territory and by abusing a few more to get into all the dungeons where the power cells are. Interestingly enough, because the game doesn't think you should be able to get into them yet, no enemies spawn within, allowing you to just pick up the cells and warp back.

** Similarly, in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheBlazingBlade'', you can have supports refer to events that haven't yet happened, most notably in Matthew and 's level A support, in which [[spoiler: Matthew is still grieving over Leila's death]], but the conversation can be triggered before [[spoiler: Leila dies]].

* in the Interactive Fiction game ''Dead Cities'', the game begins with the player bringing a book to be examined by a scholar, who talks about the book at length. In some versions of the game it is possible, at the correct moment, for the player to snatch the book back out of the scholar's hands and then leave the room while he is still talking. The player can then put the book anywhere in the house, but if they return to the scholar's room, he mysteriously has the book again.

* ''Lego Batman 2'' has a number of these:

* In ''VideoGame/EarthBound'', it's possible to glitch through certain walls and walk directly to any location in the game. At some points, the game assumes certain characters are in your party whether you've met them or not (even if Ness is alone when he's captured in Threed, Paula appears when Jeff rescues him; Poo appears when Ness returns from Magicant). However, you can't simply walk through walls to the final boss; you have to use the Phase Distorter to reach his location, or the scripted end of the battle won't trigger.

* In ''VideoGame/BaldursGateII'' during Chapter 4 you fight the BigBad in a battle that is scripted to end after he loses a certain amount of hit points, triggering a dialogue in which he teleports away. You can then exit Spellhold and continue the game. However, if you somehow get extraordinarily (un)lucky and Irenicus fails his save against Disintegrate, [[LordBritishPostulate then he does indeed Disintegrate]] - which renders the game UnintentionallyUnwinnable, since he's no longer around to trigger the dialogue and you can't move on. Of course, by all in-universe logic, you'll have ''won'' right then because the rest of the game is about chasing and stopping him.

* In ''VideoGame/BaldursGate'' a character called Biff the Understudy will appear to deliver the lines of characters that have been killed prematurely.

See also ButThouMust and StupidityIsTheOnlyOption. For the idea of "breaking" a script in the writing process, see: UsefulNotes/ScriptLifeCycle. The polar opposite of this trope is DevelopersForesight. Often coincides with SequenceBreaking, which deals with the intended sequence of gameplay elements rather than the logical cohesion of the narrative, since breaking one of these tends to break the other as well.

** At the beginning of the chapter "Sandtraps", Gordon will come across two men, on a rock, one injured. A small little scene will take place and summon three Antlions at once. If the player is extremely lucky and skilled, they can kill the antlions when they pop up before they are able to do anything, but the injured man will die regardless. I guess one of "the greatest minds of our generation" cannot be saved.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Fallout 3}}'', if the player picks Mr. Burke's pocket before telling on him, he will repeatedly try and pull his gun of Lucas Simms, and if the player follows Lucas out of the bar, he falls over dead anyway. Lucas can be saved via other means though (Such as taking the hits for him and taking out Burke).
* In ''VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaMajorasMask'', you can do this after you defeat a dungeon boss. You reset time back to the first day and warp straight to the dungeon and then the boss, after which characters who shouldn't remember who you are will act as though they've always known you. (However, this GroundhogDayLoop is a major feature of the game; once you solve certain quests and attain certain rewards, they stay solved and you keep the PlotCoupon even if you reset the clock again.)
* In the original ''VideoGame/PaperMario'', using a hack to defeat Bowser during the [[HopelessBossFight unwinnable boss battle]] at the beginning will not only be script breaking but will break the rest of the game [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B61rOhq0x4A]].

* ''VideoGame/FireEmblem'':

** It was formerly possible to get the PacifistRun GoldenEnding despite having killed monsters. Due to some misplaced EventFlags, starting the "befriend Alphys" sidequest and going back to the Core let you still fight and kill monsters. This causes a PlotHole because [[spoiler:the BigBad ostensibly needs to steal the SOUL of ''literally'' every monster in the Underground to complete ThePlan on this route]], but the actual ending plays out normally. This is because, after starting the Golden Ending route, the game stops checking if you've killed anyone. The first patch closed this hole by setting the "no more RandomEncounters in the Core" flag earlier, leaving no room to kill monsters once you've started the route to the best ending.

* ''Videogame/RabiRibi'' has a particular area -- [[spoiler:System Interior II]] -- that you are only supposed to go to after reaching Chapter 7 and doing some things in that chapter (there's a block that prevents you from jumping to the necessary places that gets removed when the correct flag is triggered), but can be reached early through a few tricky techniques. Going to this area and completing it before you're supposed to will cause the relevant cutscenes to take place and Chapter 8 to apparently begin (as indicated by the eyecatch and your savefile showing the appropriate chapter number). Fortunately, [[http://rabidb.com/entry?id=35 this doesn't actually skip any of the story]]; once you're back in control after Chapter 8 not-starts, you can continue on with what you were doing earlier and progress as usual, and you can't even enter the final dungeon anyway until you have all of the cast in town (except for Keke Bunny, who's optional).
** Notably, the game actually [[DevelopersForesight gives you an achievement]] for doing this (and many other sequence breaks).
* All boss encounters in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIV'' follow a script that determines their attack patterns and said patterns change based on the target's remaining HP and/or after a certain amount of time passes. Parties that can pump out high amounts of damage very quickly can make the boss skip a phase and move onto the next one, which effectively makes the fight quicker to complete. In the early days of the game, script breaking (unintentionally or not) could cause the boss to completely break and not attack the party. While attacking a broken enemy would be a free win, it's a very quick way to get suspended or even banned for abusing the exploit. Certain bosses also have mechanics where they have to be performed or the party wipes. In those cases, breaking the script by doing too much damage too quickly will have the boss think you failed the mechanic and uses its instant kill attack.

* ''VideoGame/{{Maelstrom}}'' had at least 2 moments where {{terraforming}} (raising or lowering terrain) could be used to screw with the game. In one mission the player had to move a group of units through a half flooded ruined city. The usual way was to use terraforming to create bridges between the small island in this area to go around and end up on top of a small cliff. Or, since the player had lots of energy resource, you could just raise a gigantic ramp to the top of the cliff from one of the first islands, bypassing a few event triggers and confusing this missions objective system. In another mission the player had to destroy a few alien bases in a mountainous region. The map was divided by a few mountain ranges with several valleys in them for ground units. Since the aliens have no terraforming or flying transports, the player could just raise walls in the valleys to cut off his part of the map from alien ground units.

* It's possible to finish ''VideoGame/UltimaVII'', getting the last two prisms with script breaking, leaving Alagner alive and skipping the Time Lord.