Times where an antagonist rejects an offered opportunity to redeem themselves in Video Games.
- In Darksiders, when War finally encounters The Destroyer face-to-face, he seems legitimately sad and regretful as he holds an unconscious Uriel in his hand while reminiscing on their shared love from long ago. However, he then invokes That Man Is Dead and gives War a We Can Rule Together speech, making it clear that unlike the truly-repentant co-conspirators Azrael and Ulthane, any regret Abaddon has for his radical yet well-intentioned role in starting Armageddon early to defeat Hell has long since been snuffed out and he would rather run from responsibility that face judgement for his role, up to and including becoming a general of Hell's army. When War rejects him by calling him a coward, Abaddon angrily tosses Uriel aside and begins the final battle.
- During the final battle in DmC: Devil May Cry against Vergil, Dante tells him "It's not too late". Vergil responds "Yes, it is" and continues fighting.
- God of War:
- A heartbreaking example in God of War: Chains of Olympus. After Persephone reveals her scheme to undo reality, Kratos was forced to put aside his redemption and ends up slaughtering the pure souls of Elysuim in order to gain his powers back that he can stop both her and Atlas. The price he ends up paying is very high; in order to save the world and the underworld, he would never see Calliope again. The quicktime event where Kratos must push away his daughter and embrace his monstrous self again is possibly the most heartbreaking use of this type of gameplay ever created.
- The final bosses of God of War (PS4) and God of War Ragnarök are each offered a chance to walk away and live in peace, but both immediately reject it and are promptly killed. Baldur tries to strangle Freya right after Kratos warns him not to do that, and Kratos snaps his neck. Odin outright tells Atreus after his boss fight that he'll never stop his mad quest for knowledge, and Atreus puts his soul into a marble which Sindri then breaks.
- In Hyrule Warriors, after Lana, Link and Zelda have beaten Ganondorf away in the Temple Of Souls scenario and try to tell Cia to stop using magic that ultimately could kill her, Cia tells them to screw off. Needless to say, Cia continues to use magic that uses her life force and she ultimately dies shortly after.
- In Knights of the Old Republic and the sequel, many dark side-aligned enemies can be persuaded to give up and redeem themselves, either through persuasion or using a Jedi Mind Trick. However, the vast majority of force-sensitive dark side users will throw the offer right back at the player's face, either calling the player weak for not embracing the Dark Side, or more rarely saying that they are too far gone to go back now.
- Mass Effect 3: At the end of the Citadel DLC, a Paragon Shepard can attempt to rescue the Shepard Clone while they are dangling off the Normandy's ramp. However, at that point, the Shepard Clone has crossed the Despair Event Horizon at realizing that while they might have Shepard's abilities and augmentations, they don't have any friends, allies, or comrades like Shepard does, and the only companion they had has betrayed them. The despair at this causes them to reject Shepard's offer and drop to their death.
- In Mega Man 11, when Mega defeats Wily again, Dr. Light shows up to point out that both of their dreams had come to light in the form of Mega Man and it's not too late to turn back. However, Wily flat out refuses and all he wants is both of them kneeling in front of him. As Wily escapes, Light laments that his friend might never return.
- In Ori and the Will of the Wisps, Ori finds out that Shriek's vendetta against them and just about anything else stems from living in exile since birth, having been rejected and feared by other creatures when she sought company. Seir later strikes her down and tries to finish her off, but Ori stops Seir and attempts to offer kindness to Shriek. Unfortunately, she rejects their kindness and later returns to try and stop Ori from joining with Seir and restoring the light in Niwen, eventually choosing to die in her dead parents' embrace instead of finally leaving the darkness after she loses the battle against Ori.
- In the climax of Pokémon Black 2 and White 2, N comes to rescue your player character from being frozen alive by Ghetsis. He then offers Ghetsis a last chance after the latter has been beaten by the player, pleading him to overthink his doings and start anew. Instead of taking this chance, Ghetsis just continues to hurl insults at N, calling him a monster over and over again, at which point he completely loses his mind and the Shadow Triad appears and takes him away, never to be seen again. When meeting the Shadow Triad in the postgame, they imply that Ghetsis has become completely insane and non-functional.
- Towards the end of Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time, the gang learn of Penelope's betrayal. She was only using her boyfriend Bentley
to build weapons to sell for billions of dollars, and sold her soul to Le Paradox for the lives of Sly and Murray. Bentley, after recovering from his Heroic BSoD, tells his ex-girlfriend that Le Paradox is only using her for his own desires, and intends to dispose of her when she's outlived her usefulness. He still loves her, and hoped that by pointing this out, she'd reconsider her betrayal and return to the Cooper Gang. She rejects this spitefully, and attacks him in murderous rage, showcasing that Penelope is a sociopath who's selfish to the core and never loved Bentley in the first place. This ends in Bentley renouncing his love, and declaring Penelope an unredeemable monster and the greatest mistake of his life. - In Suikoden IV, there are several moments where Lazlo can offer his former best friend Snowe Vingerhut the chance to join the rebellion. If the player chooses to do so, Snowe angrily rejects it. In their last encounter, this can then be inverted into a Heel–Face Door-Slam, with Lazlo deciding to execute the now thoroughly broken-down Snowe instead of offering him one last chance now that he's ready to accept it.
- In Sushi Striker: The Way of Sushido: After finally beating the Emperor of the Empire, Octavias, in a sushi struggle. Musashi offer him some sushi and tells him he doesn't have to take it from others. Octavias does seem to consider it and starts to eat it until he throws it on the ground. Rejecting Musashi's philosophy that people can't be greedy (as Octavias' father was to him) and disappears to where "sushi comes from" declaring that people's greed will start up the sushi struggles once more someday.
- In Tales of Symphonia, All-Loving Hero Lloyd repeatedly offers the Big Bad the chance to join their side and work to fix the problems he caused, after learning the details of his Freudian Excuse and traveling with him for a while. Every time, it's Mithos who rejects the offer, and even in his final words he insists on holding fast to the path he'd chosen.Mithos Yggdrasill: Farewell, my shadow. You who stand at the end of the path I chose not to follow.
- In Undertale, this can potentially happen on a second playthrough, depending on player choice. Asgore can be given a second chance in redemption if you choose to spare him after defeating him in battle (Flowey must be defeated in a previous playthrough to trigger the event). Asgore entertains the idea at first, but then rejects the redemption because he feels that it cannot make up for the sins he had committed and the idea may not have worked out anyway. Asgore kills himself, entrusting his soul to you so you can escape the underground.
- Seeing a Genocide Route to completion requires the player to do this twice, first with Papyrus, and then much later with his brother, Sans. Papyrus openly offers friendship to the player character which can only be rejected in the form of killing him, whereas Sans is written to directly appeal to the player by reminding them of previous playthroughs they may have completed in which they became friends. note Notably, Sans immediately kills you if you do accept his offer, telling you that if you really want to redeem yourself, you'll put your money where your mouth is and reset the game, effectively undoing all the harm you've done. This is designed to test the players commitment to redeeming themselves, as they might be tempted to simply go right back to fighting him out of anger.
- World of Warcraft has the Naaru Xe'ra offering Illidan the chance to be cleansed of his demonic taint and reborn in the Light as The Chosen One. Illidan is enraged by the offer as it is a denial of everything he has endured and worked for in his life. When Xe'ra tries to force the redemption on him, Illidan kills it.
- Yakuza 2: At the climax of the game, with both men wounded and a bomb set to go off, Kaoru begs Kiryu and Ryuji (her Love Interest and long lost brother, respectively) to come with her and drop their conflict. Instead, they lock themselves in with the bomb and have one final brawl to determine who's the real Dragon. After he's defeated and as he bleeds out, Ryuji confesses to Kaoru that while the idea of living a life of peace sounds nice, he's ultimately got too much Jingweon blood in him and his thirst for violence is too great, choosing instead to Go Out with a Smile and die at peace.
- Metal Wolf Chaos: At the game's climax, despite Richard Hawk's attempts at ruling the United States of America by launching a coup d'etat against the country, destroying the country's freedom, nearly nuked the country into oblivion through his Ultimate Weapon from outer space, Michael Wilson was willing risk his life to spare his running mate from burning up during re-entry and give him another chance. Hawk, however, wanted none of it, and instead throws his mercy away, laughing in his face as he burns among the stars.
