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The Hero Dies / Video Games

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NOTE: This is both a Spoilered Rotten trope and a Death Trope, meaning that EVERY SINGLE EXAMPLE on this list is a spoiler by default and will be unmarked. This is your last warning, only proceed if you really believe you can handle this list. That being said, it's also possible that examples may involve subversions or multiple protagonists.

  • In The 3rd Birthday, depending on how you look at it, Aya Brea was revealed to be Eve all along throughout the whole game that you play as her. In the ending, Aya and Eve switched bodies, with Aya in Eve's body doing a Heroic Sacrifice to be gun down to prevent dooms day, leaving Eve alive using Aya's body. Aya was the protagonist from the first two Parasite Eve games while Eve was the heroine of the 3rd game, thus the outcome kinda mind screws you regarding this trope.
  • Although he's not the main character, Captain Brenner of Advance Wars: Days Of Ruin fits this trope since Will (the star) is simply his sidekick until it happens. He's nuked while holding off the enemy and the focus of the story shifts to Will instead.
  • At the end of the third episode of Alice Is Dead, the Rabbit is shot in the head by the Queen after exiting the club. What doesn't make this a complete Downer Ending is that Alice, who was Faking the Dead all along, returns the favor.
  • Assassin's Creed:
  • The namesake character of Asura's Wrath dies thrice from his first betrayal to his facing Yasha the first time and his fighting against and a third time if you consider his turning into a statue from the nuclear explosion from the gigantic Gohma's death he dies one last and final time while in his Wrath Form which begins to kill him as he uses it. He gets better from his Heroic Willpower.
  • In Avencast: Rise of the Mage, the end is a Heroic Sacrifice to take out the Big Bad for good.
  • Batman: Arkham Knight wasn't kidding when it opened with the line "This is how the Batman died." Following the events of the game, with the reveal that the titular Arkham Knight is really Jason Todd and Scarecrow outing Bruce Wayne as Batman, it appears as if Batman and Alfred have decided to blow Wayne Manor up with them in it.
  • Betrayal at Krondor ends with the Heroic Sacrifice of Gorath, who, if not necessarily the main protagonist, is still undeniably the hero of the story.
  • Ending 20 of The Binding of Isaac reveals that the years-ongoing theory that Isaac died locked in his toy chest has fully been confirmed. The spoilery bit is that none of the game is even happening to begin with, as it is all a Dying Dream, and that he was Driven to Suicide due to guilt over thinking he caused his family to split apart. He was never the hero to begin with.
  • BioShock:
    • All endings of BioShock 2 involve Subject Delta dying, though it's his influence on Eleanor that determines how things end up and several of the endings involve her taking his essence so that he live on through her as a Spirit Advisor.
    • Played with in BioShock Infinite: After Booker DeWitt realizes that he becomes Big Bad Zachary Hale Comstock after his baptism, he proceeds to go through with his plan to kill Comstock as he was born by having Elizabeth and her alternate versions drown him. While the ending is slightly ambiguous, it is suggested that this kills all the versions of Booker that become Comstock, while the Bookers who didn't undergo baptism remain.
    • The playable characters of BOTH episodes of the Burial at Sea add-ons die in the end for different reasons: the alternate version of Comstock is killed at the end of episode one as part of Elizabeth's plan for revenge and Elizbeth allows herself to be killed by Fontaine as pat of a Memory Gambit to set up the events of the first BioShock game where Jack comes to Rapture and frees the little sisters. This is also an act of atonement for using a Little Sister named Sally in her plans for revenge, so Sally will be rescued by Jack in the good ending of BioShock.
  • Although he is only a man and not really a hero per se, Commander Video rushes to his death to stop the Mingrawn Timbletot once and for all at the end of BIT.TRIP FATE.
  • In The Blackwell Series this is the fate of Roseangela Blackwell: she reveals to her spirit guide that her ability to control the universe pouring into her head was only temporary, and that she could not sustain it for long.
  • Borderlands 2 has Roland shot in the back by Handsome Jack and he dies instantly. When you tell the major players in Sanctuary about the news, most of them are very heartbroken.
  • BROK the InvestiGator has Multiple Endings, some of which result in Brok and/or Graff perishing. Most notably, the Broken Detective ending sees Wes murdering Dee and Brok after Brok fails to deduce Wes is behind the Toxout Pill shortage (amongst other things), and the Fall ending has Brok accidentally beating Graff to death during an argument, which horrifies him so much that he resorts to committing suicide not long afterwards.
  • Brutal Orchestra: Although the game starts with Nowak falling into Purgatory, the game actually reveals that it is a Dying Dream and Nowak has minutes left to live. At the end of the game, he has accepted that Perfection Is Impossible and uses his last living moments to use his own blood to make one last memorial to his life and wild Dying Dream even though the rain will wash it away before anyone sees it, before succombing to his fatal head injuries.
  • Call of Duty has become (in)famous for doing this:
  • In Chrono Trigger, mute hero Crono is literally reduced to ash halfway through the game at the hands of Lavos, the Eldritch Abomination that our plucky heroes are out to stop. This was a huge shock at the time game was released, as it was generally accepted that, in games, The Hero couldn't die until they completed their mission. Given that the game is all about Time Travel, there is a way to bring him back. It's completely optional, however, and you don't need to do so to beat the game.
  • The Command & Conquer series actually does this a fair amount. For GDI, one of your operation commanders, Carter, eventually is seen with beginning Tiberium poisoning, but is killed by a Nod obelisk in his gunboat. McNeil, the GDI commander in Tiberian Sun ends up 'killing' Kane, but in the following expansion, Firestorm, he is killed right before the first mission when an ion storm downs his command ship.* GDI also loses everyone on board the Philadelphia (space borne command center) in the opening stages of Tiberium Wars. If Nod is your faction, they lose both the first and second wars, with Kane being reportedly 'killed' each time. Slavik of Tiberian Sun dies right before C&C3: Kane's Wrath starts. And in C&C4, the player character themselves dies in the ending, no matter which side you choose to play as. Subverted with Kane in this case though, as he completes his plan for Ascension and leaves Earth through a Scrin portal.
  • Cyberpunk 2077 can end this way, with V either taking the easy way out from the Relic's influence by shooting themself in the head, dying during a solo assault on Arasaka Tower, or relinquishing their body to Johnny Silverhand while their consciousness is transferred to cyberspace.
  • Darksiders:
    • The first game has Samael warning War of this when the Horseman makes a particular quip about last of the four Chosen Samael wants him to kill knowing more about the situation that Samael had already dilvuged, not so subtly threatening War by then mentioning that he prefers the stories with a "happy ending." Amusingly, War had already died in the opening of the game before he was Resurrected for a Job, and then dies and gets revived at the end of the game as part of a Thanatos Gambit involving the breaking of the Seventh Seal of Armageddon.
    • Darksiders II has Samael warn Death of this as well as the two clash over the Demon Key (well, for Samael it's more It Amused Me) and mentions it's a lesson War knows well (despite the fight taking place in the past before the events of the first game, but then again, Samael is The Omniscient). Once again, he's proven right as Death ultimately performs a Heroic Sacrifice to revive humanity, only to also be brought back thanks to War's actions ultimately shattering the Seventh Seal of Armageddon.
  • In the MMORPG Flash game Dawn of the Dragons, the player character (referred to as the "Dragon-Rider of West Kruna") dies of old age at the end of the Crimson Shadows quest area. Notably, the hero/heroine has the chance to let Mina von Richten (an undead vampire) turn them into a vampire themselves, but they refuse the offer and other healing spells and pass on in peace. This doesn't change anything in regard to the raid system, as you continue to use the same player model while equipping armor and fighting.
  • One possible ending to Deus Ex: Human Revolution. To ensure that mankind chooses its own destiny, Adam Jenson destroys Panchea, bringing it crashing down on him (as well as every other character present). Considering this is a prequel to the first game, the impact of what you do loses its effect. This ending is noncanon, though, since the sequel Deus Ex: Mankind Divided features Adam as the protagonist. However, MD hints that its Adam might be a clone of the one in HR, allowing this trope to still be in effect.
  • Dragalia Lost: Although Euden successfully defeats Xenos, since he is apart of his heart, Euden cannot exist without Xenos. This means that he will inevitably Disappear Into Light. Although he Goes Out With a Smile, he is unable to live in the world that he worked so hard to create. However, since Zethia was able to remember him, he gets revived. Despite this, since Zethia couldn’t remember him fully, this new Euden is a mere copy without any memories of the past, meaning that the Euden that we’ve been following throughout the entire adventure is well and truly gone.
  • Dragon Age:
    • One possible ending of Dragon Age: Origins involves the Grey Warden performing a Heroic Sacrifice to kill the Archdemon. Zevran will discuss this beforehand, only to realize something else.
      Zevran: Oh, I'm not going to die. It's always the Grey Wardens that die. Did you not read the stories as a child? The hero always dies... unless the hero has a trusty sidekick with him. Then... mmmmm... then the sidekick dies instead. I knew there was a catch!
    • Discussed in Dragon Age II — according to Varric, "it's not a good story unless the hero dies". While there's no ending where the player character dies, the person Varric was actually talking to can die by your hand if you choose. However, depending on your choices in Dragon Age: Inquisition, your Player Character in the second game will meet their end. In a way, Varric's words become prophetic.
  • Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, the sequel to The Longest Journey, has April, the hero of the first game, get unceremoniously stabbed and fall into a swamp. While many players were unconvinced that it would stick, the third game squashed those hopes by opening with her funeral.
  • By the end of DreamWeb, you've killed quite a few people and then, just as you're waking up out of a blackout from your chat to the guy who made you do it, the cops shoot you. What?! You saved mankind from chaos and your reward is to be gunned down arbitrarily in the street?! What a load of ungrateful-
  • Possibly the ending of Driv3r, where Tanner gets shot by the Big Bad and flatlines.
    • Subverted later, as he shows up alive and well in Driver: San Francisco.
  • Dust from Dust: An Elysian Tail is enveloped by the lava of the Everdawn Volcano after defeating General Gaius. In the end his spirit is implied to depart with the Blade of Ahrah, whether to the sword's resting place or a new danger is unclear.
  • Martin Septim from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion dies to summon the God Akatosh in order to kill Dagon. He may not be the player, but Martin is arguably The Hero.
  • In El Paso, Elsewhere, there are two endings depending on how many hostages were killed. In the "Thanks for Believing" ending, James Savage and his ex-girlfriend Big Bad Draculae lay next to each other, mortally wounded. Draculae smashes her lifesblood vial which would have allowed Savage to turn into a vampire himself to spare him becoming "old and cruel." They both succomb to their wounds.
  • In Fahrenheit, Lucas died from the fall caused by the Oracle when he is saving his ex-girlfriend Tiffany. However, he got better.
  • The Lone Wanderer of Fallout 3 dies if you take the 'good' path and sacrifice yourself to turn on the water purifier; this was fixed by the add-on Broken Steel.
  • Far Cry:
    • The ending of Far Cry 2 has the mercenary under your control team up with the Jackal to save a group of refugees from being slaughtered by the UFLL and the APR. One of them has to blow up a mountain pass (along with themself in the process) to cover their escape, while the other has to deliver diamonds to the border guards as a bribe to let the refugees through and commit suicide after the exchange. Which one of these tasks you end up going through with is up to you.
    • In one possible ending of Far Cry 3, Jason kills his friends in order to complete his initiation into the Rakyat. Citra rewards him with sex, but drives a knife into him as soon as he impregnates her while assuring him his offspring will grow up to be formidable warriors like himself.
  • Michael Beckett, the protagonist of FEAR 2 is killed near the end of F3AR by Paxton Fettel.
  • Final Fantasy:
  • Fire Emblem:
  • Five Nights at Freddy's:
    • Implied in the end of Five Nights at Freddy's 4, which ends with a cinematic of the protagonist fading away and, if you listen carefully, what sounds like an ECG flatlining in the background.
    • As quoted above, the bad/real ending Five Nights at Freddy's: Sister Location has the protagonist being killed and used as Genuine Human Hide by a combination of the animatronics called Ennard. However, an update to the game added an addendum to it: the robot eventually leaves the corpse, which then rises up on its own.
  • From Next Door:
    • In one of the bad endings, player character Namie dies in a house fire trying to stop the creature.
    • In another bad ending, she's taken by the creature and it's not clear what happens to her, but given that no one else taken by the creature is ever seen again her outlook is grim.
  • The end of Game of Thrones (Telltale)' first episode has one of the playable characters, Lord Ethan, murdered by Ramsay Snow. He doesn't get better either, and his place as protagonist is instead filled by his brothers Asher and Rodrik in later episodes. Then, at the end of Episode 5, either Asher or Rodrik must sacrifice himself in order to save the other, and it's up to the player to decide who is saved and who dies. Either way two of the playable characters die, along with a number of their allies. Well, it is Game Of Thrones, and Anyone Can Die.
  • Kratos from God of War dies many times throughout the franchise, only to come back out of the underworld every time. He even makes it into a Badass Boast, saying "the gates of Hades have never held me!" In the ending of the third game, he stabs himself with the Blade of Olympus to end his life for good. However, his suicide, like many of his previous deaths, has since been annulled due to his appearance in the fourth entry in the series. Since his body goes missing after the credits roll in the third game, the idea as to whether he died at all is up for debate; the PS4 entry never specifies if Kratos died from the self-inflicted stab wound or not.note 
  • Grand Theft Auto:
    • In Grand Theft Auto: Vice City, Victor Vance, the protagonist of Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories is killed during an ambushed drug deal in the opening cutscene.
    • In Grand Theft Auto V, two of the three possible endings involve one of protagonists being assassinated by Franklin Clinton, with the survivor cutting all ties with Franklin. Thankfully however, subsequent updates to Grand Theft Auto Online have since rendered these two endings as non-canon.
  • Halo:
    • Noble Six dies in a Last Stand at the end of Halo: Reach.
    • In Halo Wars, Sergeant John Forge decides to sacrifice himself to destroy the Shield World, since the bomb he was using had to be activated manually after its remote detonator was irreparably damaged.
  • At the end of Harvest Moon: A Wonderful Life you die. It's not a complete Downer Ending in that you die of old age and lived a, well, wonderful life.
  • Heavenly Sword: The titular sword takes most of Nariko's life force, and she gives up the last of it to heal Kai. Though not before taking King Bohan with her in a final showdown.
  • This is the main premise behind Hero Must Die: the protagonist sacrifices himself to defeat the Big Bad, but is brought back to life for five days in order to take care of problems that still persist after his victory. Over time, he grows weaker and more reliant on party members. The game ends on the sixth day, when the hero finally dies, this time for good.
  • Hellfire S ends with Karou's Heroic Sacrifice.
  • Hero of Many ends with the Heroic Sacrifice of the main protagonist.
  • Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number, where it doesn't matter who you consider the hero, because everyone dies.
  • Ikaruga, by Heroic Sacrifice.
  • Zigzagged in I=MGCM. Starting in Chapter 4, Episode 5 of the main story, Kaori, Seira, Lilly and three more of the heroines die (and in some cases, are subsequently corrupted into demons) in a "Groundhog Day" Loop many times. The last one is the worst: all the heroines, except Omnis, merely die onscreen. However, all heroines get better in the end. It's revealed that Groundhog Day loops are caused by Omnis' special ability to alter reality by creating alternate universes. Omnis merges the old universes with his newly created universes, where all the heroines are alive and intact. Both living and dead heroines in the universes where he screws up are merged with the copies of themselves from the universes he recently created, and their deaths get undone.
  • If you play the good Karma final mission against the Beast in inFAMOUS 2, Cole's actions will led to every Conduit's as well as his own demise. The people of New Marais will honour and remember Cole as a hero for his deeds.
  • Infernax: Happens in both the endings of the Good and Redemption paths after the battle with Belphegor. While the ending of the former shows that the villagers are building a memorial statue of Alcedor in his honor for his (and Cervul's) Heroic Sacrifice, the ending of the latter shows that the angels and demons are waging war over Alcedor and Cervul's souls, before the angels triumph and carry them away into the heavens above. This kinda sorta also happens in the Evil path ending, but it also doesn't (in two-player mode, Cervul succumbs to his wounds alongside him even in the Evil path).
  • At the end of Iron Storm, protagonist James Anderson is unceremoniously killed in the evacuation aircraft he takes because He Knows Too Much about the Consortium that's Playing Both Sides of the Forever War.
  • You die in Jade Empire at the hands of Sun Li. You get better.
  • Occurs twice in Journey (2012). While there are only a few instances of violence and you don't have a health meter, being hit by war machines doesn't count as death. The first time is when you're struggling to climb the mountain amid an intense snowstorm. A last try to reach the summit is granted as you're resurrected by the White Robes, then you finally make it... and die again, returning to the beginning. The situation worsens (or gets better - the second death is often viewed more positively as a rebirth) if accompanied by another player.
  • Conway, the first character the player has control over in Kentucky Route Zero, dies at the end of Act IV and leaves to work in a distillery for all eternity.
  • Kingdom Hearts:
    • Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, being a prequel, has the demise of its protagonists as a foregone conclusion. One is subjected to Grand Theft Me and has his own heart enslaved as an attack dog for the man who stole his body, one is sent to the equivalent of hell where she spends the next ten years being tortured, and the third puts himself into a coma to stop the end of the world.
    • Kingdom Hearts: 358/2 Days ends with Xion not only dead but erased from all memory, while Roxas falls in battle against Riku and is set up for his demise at the start of Kingdom Hearts II.
  • Ash Crimson, the protagonist of The King of Fighters XIII, erased himself from existence when he eliminated the Final Boss, his ancestor Saiki. Ash later came Back from the Dead through the aftermath of the Verse's defeat, which heralded his return in XV.
  • The final episode of Kings Quest (2015) ends with Graham passing away. Graham was very old and his health was failing at the very start of the game, so not much of a spoiler. What will be spoilered however is the circumstances surrounding Graham's death; splashing himself with poison to save his castle, his family and his kingdom from Manny's machinations. As well as a Heroic Sacrifice, it acts as a Passing the Torch moment as his grand-daughter Gwen takes up his feather cap, implying she'll be in for her own adventures.
  • In L.A. Noire, Cole Phelps is killed by a rush of water during the final case in a sacrifice to save an old member of his unit. The last cutscene before the credits takes place at his funeral.
  • Legacy of Kain:
    • At the end of Blood Omen, Kain can either choose to sacrifice himself to save the Pillars of Nosgoth, or refuse the sacrifice and let Nosgoth suffer. The canonical ending has him refusing the sacrifice, instead choosing to rule as the vampiric overlord of Nosgoth.
    • The very beginning of Soul Reaver has Raziel being thrown into the lake of the dead by Kain as punishment for surpassing Kain in evolution. After a thousand years, Raziel ends up being resurrected by the Elder God.
  • In The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel IV, after four whole games, Rean Schwarzer dies alongside Crow and Millium in the default ending. The trope is averted in the Golden Ending as Rean finds a way to survive his death.
  • The Legend of Tian-ding ends with Tian-ding getting shot by his own protégé, in the final cutscene after defeating the main villain Shimada. There are two different endings where the situation plays out differently, but you will get a bullet to the heart regardless. However, in the secret ending, you managed to survive by way of Pocket Protector.
  • The official timeline that was released in the 2011 artbook Hyrule Historia, surprised fans by revealing that the time-traveling exploits of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time resulted in three splits in the timeline of the timeline rather than two. This third split involves Link dying in the final battle instead of fulfilling his destiny, with this branch eventually leading to the NES games.
  • Life Is Strange 2 entails this in the "Lone Wolf" ending. If Sean chooses to surrender at the Mexican border and Daniel's morality is low, Daniel refuses to comply with his brother and forces their car to drive through the border gate. The police open fire on them in response and Sean takes a bullet to the throat, causing him to bleed to death almost immediately. The epilogue shows Daniel going it alone in Mexico several years later, having turned to a life of crime and violence without his brother to keep him in check.
  • Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals
    • Maxim and Selan's death in the second game is a Foregone Conclusion since the prologue of Lufia & The Fortress of Doom depicts their journey's end (at least what is known to Guy and Artea). Its remake, Lufia: Curse of the Sinistrals, keeps the general idea unchanged (Maxim and Selan die roughly at the same time instead of Selan first in the original with an aversion in New Game Plus.
    • This trope is supposed to happen earlier to Maxim in the middle of the game after a battle with Guy and Dekar against Gades in Ancient Tower. However, the Goddess of Death who arguably orchestrates the death to happen pulls a sudden Heel–Face Turn to save him, thus kickstart the second half of the plot.
  • The main protagonist of Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven, Tommy Angelo, was killed after moving out of his criminal life. By the sequel's protagonist, Vito Scarletta and his best friend, Joe Barbaro. In Mafia III, Vito himself can be killed by that game's protagonist, Lincoln Clay, and if the player has him go too far, the game will end with Father James Ballard deciding to kill Lincoln with a car bomb.
  • Mass Effect:
    • Mass Effect 2, twice, same hero. Once is at the beginning and unavoidable, though you do get better thanks to Cerberus. The other is the bad ending, which is what you get for practically going out of your way to screw things up.
    • All but one ending of Mass Effect 3 ends in Shepard's death. The Control and Synthesis options have Shepard sacrifice themselves to take control of the Reapers or initiate a process which converts all life into organic/synthetic hybrids respectively. In the Rejection ending, Shepard is just one of the countless humans killed as the Reapers successfully complete their harvest of advanced civilizations. The Destroy ending kills all synthetic life, including Shepard if your Effective Military Strength is not high enough. Otherwise, a brief scene confirms their survival as they are shown inhaling in the aftermath of Crucible's activation.
  • Me (2017): At the final stretch, "Me" goes through fading "Years" platforms while slowing down, eventually reaching the "Death" platform and stopping.
  • Medal of Honor (2010): Rabbit is captured by the terrorists and mortally wounded, and his rescuers encourage him to hang on while the rescue chopper arrives, with the first person view periodically blacking out, but he ultimately expires.
  • Zero makes yet another Heroic Sacrifice at the end of Mega Man Zero 4. This time, it's permanent. Mostly.
  • Metal Gear
  • Mortal Kombat:
  • Haku's, Zabuza's, Orochimaru's and Gaara's sagas in Naruto: Ultimate Ninja end with Team 8 being killed.
  • Ending D of NieR has the player character sacrificing his entire existence in order to bring Kainé back to life after the Shade Tyrann takes over her body. In case you don't know exactly what that means, the D Ending is the last ending you can possibly get. It is the last ending because getting it erases your entire save file piece by piece as Nier himself is erased from existence. It's pretty hardcore.
  • In NieR: Automata, 2B becomes infected with a logic virus early in the post-Ending A/B route, with A2 providing a Mercy Kill. Depending on whether you go for ending C or D after that, either A2 sacrifices herself to destroy the Tower while 9S' fate is left ambiguous, or A2 and 9S kill each other. Ending E, however, gives the player the chance to undo all three characters' deaths and give them a second chance at life, but it's nearly impossible without enlisting the help of other players who sacrificed their own save data to assist you (possibly invoking a meta version of this trope in the process,) and the player is given the option to give up their own save data to pass it forward.
  • The final level of Oh...Sir!! The Insult Simulator has the player character battling in The Afterlife against God.
  • John Pilgrim can die in most endings of One Chance.
  • Soki did a Heroic Sacrifice in Onimusha: Dawn of Dreams after finding out he's the reincarnation of a death god.
  • At the end of Ori and the Will of the Wisps, the titular hero sacrifices their life as a guardian spirit and becomes the new Spirit Tree in order to revive their owl friend Ku and save the land of Niwen from The Corruption.
  • The protagonist of Persona 3 by Heroic Sacrifice. Well, he was a fairly obvious Messianic Archetype...
    • Some of the other characters are not happy about this. When given the option to resurrect them, the party start fighting amongst themselves, providing an extra chapter. Then at the end of the chapter, they discover that the Protagonist's soul is keeping a huge gate closed to stop two supernatural entities from touching each other and destroying the world.
  • Planescape: Torment, but that's what the hero has been trying to achieve. And his death is not the end.
  • Though the heroine of RayForce successfully destroys Con-Human, she dies in the resulting explosion.
  • The final story mission of Red Dead Redemption has John Marston walk out to face his doom at the bullets of an army, in order to give his wife and son a chance to escape and live better lives. Widely considered to be a Dying Moment of Awesome.
    • In the prequel, Red Dead Redemption 2, Arthur Morgan, already terminally ill with tuberculosis, performs a Heroic Sacrifice at the end to help John secure a better future for his family. Depending on his honor, Arthur is either murdered by Micah Bell (low honor) or spared by him and allowed to relax content with himself and catch a final glimpse of the sunrise shortly before passing away peacefully (high honor).
  • In RefleX, the pilot of the Phoenix is brutally killed by the ZODIAC Virgo in a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
  • Resident Evil Village: Ethan Winters has technically been dead since Jack Baker's Accidental Murder in the prologue of Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, where he was resurrected by the Mold. He dies for good at the end of Village when he starts calcifying and decides to stay behind in the village to detonate a bomb to destroy the Megamycete, content with the knowledge that his wife and daughter are safe.
  • Nathan Hale in the ending of Resistance 2. Though he had just succumbed to The Virus he'd been struggling with the whole time, so he technically wasn't a hero when he died.
  • At the end of Robotech: Battlecry, Jack Archer ends up getting transported into deep space along with Zeraal when the latter uses an old Spacefold drive in Zentradi City to warp them away. Archer defeats Zeraal in the ensuing fight, but with his own craft running out of power and no way of contacting Earth, he is condemned to die far from home when the oxygen in his craft eventually runs out...
  • In Saga Frontier 2, Gustave XIII is killed by monsters in the middle of the story, an event which kicks off two generations of warfare as the empire he built in the first half of the game breaks apart.
  • Sakura Wars:
    • A subverted example occurs at the end of Sakura Wars (1996). The rest of the Flower Division's efforts to buy Ichiro Ogami and the top girl some time ultimately lead to their deaths, but Michael revives them so that they can take down Satan for good.
    • In Sakura Wars (2019), Anastasia Palma, Clarissa "Claris" Snowflake, Azami Mochizuki and Hatsuho Shinonome are all killed during the Flower Division's Final Battle with Yaksha. Subverted when they are revived thanks to the sakura petals from the alternate dimension.
  • In the ending of Shinobi (2002), Hotsuma stays behind at the collapsing Golden Palace after killing Hiruko to seal away Akujiki.
  • Silent Hill:
    • Harry Mason, the hero of the first Silent Hill, dies halfway through 3. He also dies in the non-canon "Bad" Ending of the first game.
    • Silent Hill 2 can potentially end with protagonist James Sunderland committing suicide by driving his car into a lake. The fourth game reveals that he never came back from Silent Hill, which many has interpreted as this ending being the canonical one.
    • In Silent Hill 4: The Room, Henry dies in the "21 Sacraments" Ending.
  • Skully: While you're technically Dead to Begin With (being a skull bestowed life by the earth elemental, Terry), in the final scene you sacrifice yourself to seal the cracked Heart of the Earth, to unite the elemental siblings at the cost of your life. The game ends with you reverted to an ordinary skull embedded in earth.
  • SOS: Happens to each of the protagonists if they escape with a D rank (save Luke Haines, if he escapes with a C ranking). Also happens to Capris Wisher if he escapes with a B or C ranking; to Redwin Gardner if he escapes with an A ranking; to Jeffrey Howell if he escapes with an A ranking; and to Luke if he escapes with an A or B ranking.
  • Walker dies in two of the four endings of Spec Ops: The Line, either by his own hand or at the hands of the squad of soldiers sent to rescue him. Depending on one's interpretation of the game, he may have died during the In Medias Res helicopter fight at the beginning.
  • If you choose to fight the emperor, Starkiller in Star Wars: The Force Unleashed will die fighting the emperor to buy time for the resistance to escape. Though he "indirectly" got better in the sequel. If you choose the Dark Side ending in the sequel, the Starkiller clone and everyone good on the platform are killed by an evil Starkiller clone.
  • Possibly the epilogue of Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow. Since the series has apparently been terminated, we may never know.
  • Luke fon Fabre in Tales of the Abyss...maybe. He's gradually fading away as a result of performing a hyperresonance to eliminate the miasma late in the game, and seemingly fades away completely after freeing Lorelei. It depends on whether the red-headed man in the post-credits sequence is him or Asch, or perhaps some combination of the two, since the man vaguely alludes to a "promise" he made to someone. Or, to quote Word of God, it depends on who you think it is.
  • Ark from Terranigma is killed by his light counterpart, and vanishes in the end as a consequence of him destroying the Underworld.
  • The titular emerging AI in Thomas Was Alone is consumed by the Pixel Cloud about halfway through the game, just as the AIs reach the end of the level. This is the first indication to the rest that the Pixel Cloud really is dangerous. The rest of the original AIs willingly disperse themselves in order to allow the others to escape the system.
  • Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation was supposed to be the end of the Tomb Raider series (at least on the PS1), with Lara suffering a No One Could Survive That! fate. It ended up being an Our Hero Is Dead instead, with her getting better in Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness.
  • This happens at the end of the Morality endgame in Triangle Strategy. Serenoa sacrifices himself to keep Idore from suicide bombing the rest of the party and the escaping Rosellan slaves.
  • The silent protagonist Anon from TRON: Evolution died protecting Quorra from a huge falling aircraft.
  • Turning Point: The Fall of Liberty has the player character prematurely detonate a German atomic bomb meant for New York, and he dies in the blast.
  • In the finale of the Ultima series, Ultima IX, the Avatar must sacrifice himself to also destroy the Guardian. His sacrifice is marked by a new constellation in the sky.
  • In The Walking Dead (Telltale), Lee Everett either dies or reanimates as a walker at the end of Episode 5 after the Twist Ending of Episode 4. With Clementine in the room. She can even be the one who puts him down.
  • The tragedy of When Yanderes Cry involves this trope. Each of the Multiple Endings just leads Nishiki to a girl who has something different to say to him before killing him.
  • In The Witch and the Hundred Knight, there is a timer countdown of how many more days Metallia has left to live at the end of every chapter. In all 3 endings, shdies in different ways, through she was revived through growing from a seed in the "Bad" ending epilogue.
  • An interesting case in Xenoblade Chronicles 1. The protagonist Shulk was technically dead since long before the story began, only being kept alive by the god dwelling within him, who was also the one who killed him in the first place. When said god leaves his body, he becomes truly dead, but has his life force restored by a more benevolent god shortly after.
  • In the DLC 'Final Transmission' ending of The Callisto Protocol, Jacob is revealed to be already on the verge of death and eventually succumbs to his wounds shortly after Dr Mahler completes the transmission of all of her evidence and research data.

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