As a Death Trope, Spoilers naturally abound. Be cautious.
Times where somebody decides they're More Expendable Than You in Video Games.
- In order to get the plot-necessary magic power "Anfini" in Breath of Fire II, Ryu is told he must sacrifice the life of one of his friends. Naturally, everyone volunteers (after all, they're trying to save the world). As it turns out, you have to refuse to sacrifice anyone, since Anfini is The Power of Friendship and cannot be given to anyone who would sacrifice a friend in return for power.
- In Dragon Age: Origins, if you reject Morrigan's proposal and take Alistair with you (and are female and pursued a romance with him), Alistair will sacrifice himself instead of you in order to kill the Big Bad.
- Prior to that Riordan volunteers, reasoning that since he has been a Gray Warden for far longer than the other characters, he has much less time left before the taint kills him. However, Riordan ultimately fails to kill the Archdemon, necessitating one of the other characters to make the sacrifice.
- Annoyingly averted at the end of Fallout 3, where the three NPCs who are the most likely to actually survive the dangerous task all refuse to do it for you and the only NPC who is willing to do it but will die for sure has to be begged to go through with it.
- Retconned and played straight with the Broken Steel expansion, where the three companions can now go through with it.
- Annoyingly, the game still plays the ending cutscene that, basically, calls you a coward for doing the smart thing. Honor Before Reason indeed. Of course, even if you do it yourself in the expansion, you survive.
- Final Fantasy Legend III: One of the underlings of the Big Bad is defending the barrier machine that prevents the heroes from traveling to the Mt. Goht, the heroes try using the Mystic Swords that would kill the beast, but the barrier prevents even that from occurring, A bomb was planted in Dion in case of an emergency and he charges the machine and destroys it. Allowing the Heroes to defeat the enemy and advance. He is brought back to life through biomedical cloning at the end of the game.
- The Badass Normal Hero Sergeant Forge from Halo Wars is rightfully far more expendable than the three Spartan-II Super Soldiers under his command, which comes into play for the final mission; when Someone Has to Die, one of said Spartans volunteers to sacrifice himself, but Forge decides to do it himself, citing this very trope:Son, I've a feeling before this is over, we'll need every last Spartan in the fight. I can do this. Report back to the ship.
- In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Midna is tormented through light exposure and left for dead; Link brings her to Zelda for help. Midna, reconciled to her own death, only asks Zelda to help Link complete the quest. Instead, Zelda gives up her own life, transferring her essence into Midna to restore her to full health. She gets better - both of them.
- In Mass Effect, on Virmire, Ashley tells Shepard to save Kaidan over her because he outranks her. Unfortunately, Kaidan makes the same plea, not wanting one of his soldiers to die because of him. It's up to Shepard whether to decide who to agree with, but neither is a desirable choice.
- In Metroid: Other M, Adam disables Samus with his ice gun, and specifically says "I'm no galactic savior" to her before going on to sacrifice himself in the destruction of Sector 0 and its ice-resistant Metroids.
- In Phantom Brave, Ash is prepared to perform a Heroic Sacrifice to prevent Sulphur from entering Ivoire. Walnut shoves him aside and does it instead.
- While the ending of Quest for Glory V is more Gondor Calls for Aid, the aid people will gladly sacrifice themselves if the hero tries to do so.
- While Arthur’s fate in Red Dead Redemption 2 was sealed with his TB diagnosis, he stays behind right before his death to let his friend John escape unscathed because John has a wife and a child to worry about while he doesn’t.
- Inverted near the end of The Saboteur. Vittore volunteers to race his car (which will be rigged to explode after driving it in to the winner's podium) in the Paris-wide race the Nazis are planning. Sean promptly knocks Vittore out and takes his place instead. Ironically, after the race, it is Vittore who ends up dying, and not Sean.
- In Star Wars: The Old Republic, When the Jedi Knight and his group plan to attack Korriban to kill or imprison the Emperor, Scourge mentions that the Jedi Knight's life takes priority because he is the only one who can face the Emperor.
- Towards the end of Super Paper Mario, you lose companions one by one to this, until you're left to fight the boss battle yourself. It doesn't last, though.
- The entire party in Tales of Symphonia pull off this trope, one by one in succession against the Malevolent Architecture of the (presumably) final dungeon, to make sure Lloyd makes it to the (presumably) final fight with the game's Big Bad. He is the only one who can properly wield the Sword of Plot Advancement that's needed to save the world, so if he died at any point in the process, nothing else anyone did would make any difference to the eventual outcome. Everyone's aware of this, which is why none of them hesitate to do everything necessary to make sure Lloyd is able to get through, no matter the price.
- At the end of Ultima VII Part II: Serpent Isle, a life must be sacrificed to restore the Chaos Serpent. The Avatar draws the short straw, but his companion Dupre dives into the crematorium in his stead.
- Attempted in Wild ARMs 4, when Raquel (with her Incurable Cough of Death) tries to order Arnaud to leave her behind when the pocket dimension they've been trapped in begins to collapse. Arnaud essentially says "Nuts to that!" and drags her with him anyway, both narrowly escaping in time.
- In Xenoblade Chronicles 3, when Ouroboros are planning a major prison break they're warned that they may need to consider some of the prisoners as this in order to ensure themselves and their priority target (possessed of key intelligence) can get out. When the plan goes completely south and the whole group is surrounded, they decide that they are the more expendable ones. Justified by the combination of thinking it will take their power occupying the enemy to create an opening for anybody to escape at all, and the fact they've learned it's possible for others to become Ouroboros (primarily people they're helping to escape).
