History Main / ScriptBreaking

* ''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, 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).

* ''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 there (there's a block that prevents you from jumping to the necessary parts 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, 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).

* Spectacularly subverted in the indie game ''Iji''. At one point, [[spoiler: Asha sets up an ambush using Dan as bait. Normally, a Komato trooper teleports behind Iji, who kills the trooper and then Asha kills Dan while she's preoccupied]]. If you already know that this is going to happen, [[spoiler: you can place a mine you got earlier in the level to deal with an entirely different situation on the teleporter, killing the trooper on arrival while Iji just continues to point her gun at Asha's head and [[ProperlyParanoid tells him she's nobody's fool]]]]. [[DevelopersForesight The game has an ''entire script lasting the rest of the game'', and even a variant ending, for this specific event!]]
** In fact, for an "innocent" run, ''0'' kills, you have to do just that. You can also do other script breaking things, which are rationalized by gameplay or story reasons, and there are events for that as well. The script refuses to break.

* ''VideoGame/{{Portal 2}}'' contains some very subtle tweaks to avoid script breaks. The most obvious is that the color of the very last portal you shoot in the game is ignored.

* Sequence breaking is possible in certain ''Franchise/{{Castlevania}}'' games. A glitch in ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaPortraitOfRuin'' makes it possible to enter a cutscene room from the wrong side -- in which case the scene still happens, but with you standing behind the bad guys, who don't turn around. The fact that there are ''gestures'' in this scene makes it even more surreal.

* The ''OperationFlashpoint'' single-player campaign features at least two instances of this:

** In the second-gen games, using a "Walk Through Walls" GameShark code and walking up to sprites you are not supposed to touch will either make the sprites say "object event" or crash the game. The same thing happens in the first gen games too, and you can encounter some [[TheMissingno pretty bizarre glitch trainer battles]] with it. You can also break sequence in both Game Boy titles and get into Pokémon battles without actually having any pokemon in your party, which also results in funky (and game-breaking) glitches.

** It was formerly possible to get the PacifistRun GoldenEnding despite having killed monsters. Due to a glitch, 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. A patch eventually got rid of this by removing all RandomEncounters in any area but TheVeryDefinitelyFinalDungeon, but the monsters there can't be killed the conventional way anyways.

** Due to some mistimed EventFlags, it's possible to get the PacifistRun GoldenEnding despite having killed monsters in the last area. 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 just ignores this and plays out totally normally.
** Muffet becomes sparable after surviving 3 "waves" of her attacks or by using one of her "spider products". Doing the latter after the former causes the scene where she receives a telegram showing you aren't an enemy to spiders to play twice.

->''"You used your [[EscapeRope escapipe]]! Normally a smart move, but now I'm afraid the game can't be continued. Please press the Reset Button and try again."''

* A minor-but-amusing case in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyV''. Normally, the first time you enter the Sealed Castle in the second world, Galuf will explain to you exactly what the Castle is all about. It is never required that you visit the Sealed Castle in the second world, and if you put it off until [[spoiler:Galuf dies]], then [[spoiler:Krile will explain everything Galuf does, in the exact same way Galuf would have, and the text even will be credited to "Galuf".]]

* Due to some mistimed EventFlags in ''VideoGame/{{Undertale}}'', it's possible to get the PacifistRun GoldenEnding despite having killed monsters in the last area. 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 just ignores this and plays out totally normally.

** While perhaps not -script- breaking, it is possible to simply go to your dad's last location and do the final missions first. While this is a nice shortcut for veterans, a new player doing a certain side-quest will almost certainly trigger an event flag at around the half-way mark of the main quest, thereby accidentally side-stepping a huge chunk of the main campaign. It's somewhat immersion-breaking, at the very least. It's also awkward if you want to get all the achievements.
::: It's also pretty easy for a new player exploring the Wasteland (rather than following the main quest) to stumble upon his location, which doesn't even have a locked door to keep you out of it.
** On the other hand, if you do choose to break the sequence and skip meeting Three Dog, you can still go back and do his quest, and [[DevelopersForesight the reward changes to the location of a weapons cache]].

->''"You used your escapipe! Normally a smart move, but now I'm afraid the game can't be continued. Please press the Reset Button and try again."''

* ''VideoGame/HalfLife2'':
** During the assault on the Overwatch Nexus, the player will come across some resistance members in a cell, and some Combine guards executing them to prevent them from being rescued. If you kill the guards before they can finish, any survivors will join your squad. There will always be exactly enough resistance members to bring your current squad up to its max of four, so if you only have one squad member there will be three prisoners. However, if you already have a full squad, there will still be one prisoner, and he will still crumple up and die even if you manage to kill the guards. Moreover, his death isn't triggered until you cross the threshold, so if you kill all the guards from outside, you can look through the door and see that he is still very much alive. Then you walk through the door, and instant ragdoll.
** Similarly, at one point the player 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" can not be saved.
** Late in the game the player can carry a turret into a room where an NPC ally is being held captive. The turret is hostile to the ally, and will open fire. For some reason this NPC lacks GameplayAllyImmortality and can be killed by the turret, which prevents the game from advancing further.

* ''Dishonored'' has a hilarious example which occurs if Corvo exposes the Lord Regent's crimes after rewiring one or more of the "Wall of Light" security devices in his mansion to attack the guards instead of Corvo. The guards arrest the Lord Regent and begin to follow a script of marching the Lord Regent through the mansion to the exit and to prison - but their route takes them through one of the rewired Walls of Light, meaning they lead the Lord Regent into it and watch him get incinerated in front of them.

* In ''Franchise/StarWars: [[VideoGame/DarkForcesSaga Jedi Knight II]]'' if you kill Tavion not the usual way, by accumulating damage, but by tossing her off a cliff (ridiculously hard to do, because they were almost always immune to Force Push) the cutscene that plays afterwards, where Kyle is supposed to threaten Tavion, plays out as normal, except without Tavion. At one point, Kyle is suspending Tavion in mid-air with the Force Choke ability, thinks better of it, and drops her. At which point Tavion fell out of midair, back into the scene.

** Avioded in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemPathOfRadiance'', where supports are now based off the number of chapters both partners are deployed in, as opposed to amount of turns standing next to eachother. Probably the main reason for this is Jill, who has most of her A supports refering to [[spoiler: the death of her father]], which doesn't occur until a specific chapter. Her supports are rigged so those conversations can't happen before said plot event.

* In the ''{{Starcraft}}'' mission "Agent of the Swarm" (the Zerg mission where you have to defend the Chrysalis until it hatches), normally you're supposed to wait until it hatches then infest a Terran Command Center, but there's nothing stopping you from just waltzing into the base and taking the command center as soon as the mission begins (although, through legit means it'll probably hatch before you get near the command center). This makes the conversation at the end of the mission weird since [[spoiler: Infested Kerrigan]] hasn't hatched yet but they're talking to Raynor as if they already hatched.

* In the second-gen ''{{Pokemon}}'' games, using a "Walk Through Walls" GameShark code and walking up to sprites you are not supposed to touch will either make the sprites say "object event" or crash the game.
** The same thing happens in the first gen games too, and you can encounter some [[TheMissingno pretty bizarre glitch trainer battles]] with it. You can also break sequence in both Game Boy titles and get into pokemon battles without actually having any pokemon in your party, which also results in funky (and game-breaking) glitches.
** More benign script breaking can happen in the first gen games when you attempt to go to the bike-only road without a bike. The guard will tell you to get lost until you have a bike but if you're persistent, you can end up on the road anyway - riding the bike you don't have!
** In first gen games, you're supposed to get a drink from the vending machine in Celadon before you can enter Saffron. However, if you have ''Pokemon Stadium 2'' and use a transfer pack, you can transfer a drink to one game from another and enter Saffron as soon as you reached Cerulean. When the Remakes came out, Pokemon could now hold items, so you could give a drink to a Pokemon and then trade it...[[ObviousRulePatch which is why you now need a key item to get past the guards.]]
* In the N64 game ''VideoGame/GoldenEye1997'', the player can have much fun by exploiting the cutscenes with a cheat code that gives Bond an unlimited supply of every weapon in the game. The player can stop just short of the area where a cutscene will activate, load the area with explosives, such as proximity mines, and then step into said area, resulting in a cutscene where [[OutOfTheInferno Bond will walk unscathed through an environment erupting in fireballs]] and sending any [=NPCs=] [[RagdollPhysics flying]]. Fortunately, this does not result in a mission failure if one of the [=NPCs=] killed was supposed to [[EscortMission stay alive]].
** Also, fiddling with the second player controller, with the addition of luck, one can simply shoot down many of the cutscene characters. Causing, in one instance, the memorable scene of Bond in his VictoryPose with his BondGirl Natalya dead at his feet.
** It's also possible to kill every named baddy in ''VideoGame/GoldenEye1997'', whether or not they are supposed to die at that point. Generally, though, you can only get away with killing Ourumov without failing your mission. Unfortunately, the storyline never changes.
*** Baron Samedi, in particular, can be killed in the ending cutscene of his level. ''During his maniacal laughter.''

** DX has been [[http://it-he.org/deus.htm hilariously, systematically broken]] by some of its more "devoted" fans.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Hitman}} 2: Silent Assassin'', it is possible to kill the final boss by strangling him with a garotte through a wall. If you do this, then the cutscene before the boss fight will show a shotgun floating in mid-air, and during the battle you'll fight the ''boss' flying corpse.''
** And if you strangle him after the boss battle start, he will be on the ground in a HUUUUUGE puddle of blood. The Dev team assume you would shoot him with the M60 or another really heavy gun.

* In ''VideoGame/HalfLife1'', near the beginning of the game, the player climbs a ladder to see two zombies fighting a security guard. The guard talks to the player upon seeing him. A particularly lucky and/or skilled player can shoot the guard to kill him as soon as he begins delivering his line, therefore causing the guard's corpse to speak.
** A more serious one occurs when Freeman gets captured. In older versions of the game, you may break the script if you try moving around during the cutscene, leaving you in a dark "script-holding" room which you can't escape from.

* In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemTheSacredStones'', you can instigate some support conversations that refer to characters that haven't joined. A few of these were actually just translation errors though.
** Similarly, in ''VideoGame/FireEmblemBlazingSword'', you can have supports refer to events that haven't yet happened, most notably in Matthew and Serra'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]].
** Avioded in ''Path of Radiance'', where supports are now based off the number of chapters both partners are deployed in, as opposed to amount of turns standing next to eachother. Probably the main reason for this is Jill, who has most of her A supports refering to [[spoiler: the death of her father]], which doesn't occur until a specific chapter. Her supports are rigged so those conversations can't happen before said plot event.

-->-- '''The King''', ''PhantasyStarIII'', after you escape from prison [[DevelopersForesight the unauthorized way.]]

* The infamous "Red Key Card bug" from ''LittleBigAdventure'' / ''Relentless'' is caused by script breaking. Normally, in order to break into the museum, you need to get said key card from a character and use it on the back door of the museum to get in and do some stuff here (including stealing several items). However, it is perfectly possible to steal these items by just fighting your way in from the front door, and if you do this, ''the game will assume you already have the key card, so you can no longer get it''. The nasty part is that ''you'll need the card later on and won't be able to complete the game without it''.
* In the final mission of the single player campaign in ''Age of Mythology'', you are supposed to get Arkantos turned into a demi-god and have him kill a statue of Poseidon. But if you're good you can just destroy the statue with your mortal army, at which point, sure enough, there's a cutscene of demi-god Arkantos fighting and finishing off the statue.
* The first-person-shooter ''RedFaction'' had rebel miners that were scripted to be killed by certain guards, either through grappling or general combat. Killing said guards before they could kill the miners (or were in the process of), would often cause the miners to grapple with 'invisible' enemies while the guards' corpse lay at his feet, or merely fall down dead when reaching the end of their script.

->''"You used your [[EscapeRope escapipe]]! Normally a smart move, but now I'm afraid the game can't be continued. Please press the ResetButton and try again."''

* A certain stealth mission in ''[[VideoGame/{{SyphonFilter}} Syphon Filter 2]]'' involves a mountain bridge, which is rigged with bombs, and guarded by a small army of mooks. Two minutes after level starts, their captain gives an order to blow these bombs; so you're expected to find a silent weapon, dispatch of him before that happens (without raising alarm, of course), and continue searching for bombs without any time limit. However, it's totally possible for Logan to [[{{Badass}} disarm all four bombs in these two minutes, without breaking stealth as well]]. For some reason, you still lose the mission when the timer reaches 00.

** A particular easy-to-achieve example is on the ''Combat Evolved'' level "Assault on the Control Room". Near the end of the level, the Chief crosses a bridge above an open area containing a pyramid which is the entrance to the eponymous Control Room point As soon as the patrolling enemies on the bridge see the player, an Elite takes off in a Banshee to harass you. Apparently, the game expects the player to fight across the bridge, through another [[CopyPasteEnvironment series of identical rooms]], emerge at the bottom of the pyramid, then fight back ''up'' the pyramid to the entrance; a sequence of events involving fighting several Hunters and a tank. Many players are unaware of this, however, since it is trivially easy to reach the invitingly empty Banshee ''before'' the Elite, then simply fly to the top of the pyramid and enter the Control Room, spawning no new enemies along the way.

* Crafty players can jump down very deep pits in ''Franchise/{{Halo}}'' to sequence break. However, more than sequence break, the player skips all the event flags in the map as well; Master Chief can trot to victory! Neither friend nor foe will spawn in the entire map due to the linear nature of Halo's event tripping.
** A particular easy-to-achieve example is on the level "Assault on the Control Room". Near the end of the level, the Chief crosses a bridge above an open area containing a pyramid which is the entrance to the eponymous Control Ropoint As soon as the patrolling enemies on the bridge see the player, an Elite takes off in a Banshee to harass you. Apparently, the game expects the player to fight across the bridge, through another [[CopyPasteEnvironment series of identical rooms]], emerging at the bottom of the pyramid,then fighting back ''up'' the pyramid to the entrance; a sequence of events involving fighting several Hunters and a tank. Many players are unaware of this, however, since it is trivially easy to reach the invitingly empty Banshee ''before'' the Elite, then simply fly to the top of the pyramid and enter the Control Room, spawning no new enemies along the way.
** In ''VideoGame/{{Halo 3}}'''s The Covenant mission, landing the Hornet on the Citadel can prematurely trigger the next chapter, and when you reach the point where the Flood team up with you, the game freezes.