# Video games where the protagonist dies at the end (spoliers ahoy!) **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [October 27, 2007, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-where-the-protagonist-dies-at-the-end-spoliers-ahoy/424244 "2007-10-27T18:02:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![T.O](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@T.O](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/T.O)\ **Post date:** [December 7, 2007, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-where-the-protagonist-dies-at-the-end-spoliers-ahoy/424244/61 "2007-12-07T23:57:30Z")
[QUOTE=Sitnam] Doom II, you beat the Cyberdeamon then pass into a teleport to hell…you don’t last. [/QUOTE] That’s not how I remember it. The last level (not counting the hidden levels) has you in a room facing a giant demon head. You have to ride an elevator and fire your rocket launcher at just the right time so it goes in a hole in the head, which kills the giant demon head and you win. If you use the noclip cheat code to see what’s at the end of the hole you shoot the rocket down, you find John Romero’s head on a stake. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2007, 12:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-where-the-protagonist-dies-at-the-end-spoliers-ahoy/424244/62 "2007-12-08T00:05:55Z")
[QUOTE=Illuminatiprimus] Technically you’re dead in the Legacy of Kain games as Vampires aren’t really classed as alive. It’s a shame what happened to that franchise, a damned shame… _Takes off hat and silently pauses to mark his respect for a dead and mangled game franchise that should have gone out a lot nicer_ [/QUOTE] That’s Eidos for you. If they make a good game, it’s purely by mistake, and will be corrected in the sequel. ---
**Author:** ![Illuminatiprimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/illuminatiprimus/32/11520_2.png) [@Illuminatiprimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Illuminatiprimus)\ **Post date:** [December 8, 2007, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-where-the-protagonist-dies-at-the-end-spoliers-ahoy/424244/63 "2007-12-08T00:16:50Z")
Indeedy, just look at the mangled corpse of Lara Croft and all her aborted fetuses. ---
**Author:** ![DullSaber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ea5d25/32.png) [@DullSaber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DullSaber)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-where-the-protagonist-dies-at-the-end-spoliers-ahoy/424244/64 "2014-06-11T23:03:21Z")
Halo Reach ---
**Author:** ![Cuckoorex](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ad7895/32.png) [@Cuckoorex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cuckoorex)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-where-the-protagonist-dies-at-the-end-spoliers-ahoy/424244/65 "2014-06-11T23:44:46Z")
I inevitably kill off every Sim that I’ve ever made. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [June 11, 2014, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-where-the-protagonist-dies-at-the-end-spoliers-ahoy/424244/66 "2014-06-11T23:51:10Z")
By the way, it was the original _Doom_ that ended with the player dropped into a lethal ambush, not _Doom II_. _Wing Commander IV_ had multiple endings, but if you got to the end, it came down to a choice of whether or not the main character (played in the video segments by Mark Hamill) should interrupt a speech by the rogue admiral (Malcolm McDonnell). If you interrupt, Hamill lives. If you don’t, Hamill hangs. ---
**Author:** ![Wash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/9dc877/32.png) [@Wash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wash)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2014, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-where-the-protagonist-dies-at-the-end-spoliers-ahoy/424244/67 "2014-06-12T00:01:13Z")
Season 1 of Telltale’s _The Walking Dead_. [spoiler] The protagonist, Lee, is bitten at the end of episode 5. After rescuing 9 year old Clementine from her kidnapper and making their way through the herd of walkers roaming Savannah, Lee collapses, unable to go any further. In the last scene of episode 6, you then, as Lee, have to decide whether to have Clem shoot him, or leave him and presumably have him later reanimate. You know a game presents you with some tough choices when this is one of the less gruesome and easier ones to make.[/spoiler] ---
**Author:** ![Scumpup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ce73a5/32.png) [@Scumpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scumpup)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2014, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-where-the-protagonist-dies-at-the-end-spoliers-ahoy/424244/68 "2014-06-12T00:03:50Z")
IIRC, most of the Silent Hill games have death of the protagonist as an alternate ending. Fallout 3 as originally released ended with the death of the protagonist, though later DLC changed that. ---
**Author:** ![zodiacza](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/9de0a6/32.png) [@zodiacza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zodiacza)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2014, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-where-the-protagonist-dies-at-the-end-spoliers-ahoy/424244/69 "2014-06-12T00:06:01Z")
hmm, john marston in red dead redemption dies at the end. you play as his grown up son once the game is finished. solid/old snake is heavily implied to die at the end of metal gear solid 4 starkiller in starwars the force unleashed games. he dies at the end in both games. you can choose if he dies either killed as a jedi or severely mutilated as a sith. he comes back as a clone in the second game, he lives if you choose the light side and dies if you choose the dark side ---
**Author:** ![Jophiel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jophiel/32/66_2.png) [@Jophiel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jophiel)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2014, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-where-the-protagonist-dies-at-the-end-spoliers-ahoy/424244/70 "2014-06-12T00:11:57Z")
In Dragon Age: Origins, assuming you don’t take Morrigan up on her offer, either you or the other Grey Warden is only going to live on in stories and memories. ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2014, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-where-the-protagonist-dies-at-the-end-spoliers-ahoy/424244/71 "2014-06-12T00:17:34Z")
> [@Scumpup](#): > > Fallout 3 as originally released ended with the death of the protagonist, though later DLC changed that. I believe you can talk your partner into dying instead of you, though. ---
**Author:** ![thelurkinghorror](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7c8e57/32.png) [@thelurkinghorror](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thelurkinghorror)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2014, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-where-the-protagonist-dies-at-the-end-spoliers-ahoy/424244/72 "2014-06-12T00:47:36Z")
> [@Mahaloth](#): > > I believe you can talk your partner into dying instead of you, though. But inexplicably, not any of your radiation-immune friends. That part is also fixed in the aforementioned DLC. BTW, _Walking Dead_ is very relevant to this thread. It’s from 2007(!). For some reason, I always remembered **Argent Towers** ’ weird elaborate post. ---
**Author:** ![hogarth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hogarth/32/1773_2.png) [@hogarth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hogarth)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2014, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-where-the-protagonist-dies-at-the-end-spoliers-ahoy/424244/73 "2014-06-12T01:19:29Z")
Red Dead Redemption and Mass Effect 3 are two obvious examples. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2014, 1:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-where-the-protagonist-dies-at-the-end-spoliers-ahoy/424244/74 "2014-06-12T01:34:21Z")
Since this thread is back, I’ll add Mass Effect 2 and 3 as possible options - Mass Effect 2: [spoiler]You die at the start. You get better. But if you do a shitty job of easing tensions amongst your crew, reinforcing the Normandy Mk2, and assigning tasks for the final grand mission, it’s possible to kill your entire ground crew except yourself and have basically the only remaining (named) crew member be Joker, who is too weak to haul you up into the Normandy as the platform crumbles under you. You die for good. This, however, is the worst possible ending and is not importable into ME3.[/spoiler] Mass Effect 3: You have 4 major endings- In the ‘fuck you, I’m not playing your little game’ ending, all of the sentient races get Reaped but Liara’s little ‘this is what you have to do’ boxes help the next cycle beat them. In the Control ending, you basically become the Reapers’ immortal controller/god/sentience and are no longer alive in the standard sense. In the Symbiosis ending, you die but manage to merge synthetic and organic lifeforms to prevent further Reaper-type evolution in the future. In the Destroy ending, you destroy the Reapers and die - unless your military strength was very high, in which case the last scene is of you in rubble - and then gasping for breath. ---
**Author:** ![zodiacza](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/9de0a6/32.png) [@zodiacza](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zodiacza)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2014, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-where-the-protagonist-dies-at-the-end-spoliers-ahoy/424244/75 "2014-06-12T01:41:37Z")
oh yes, i forgot, you can decide if you want jodie to die and come back as a ghost or live in beyond 2 souls, ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2014, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-where-the-protagonist-dies-at-the-end-spoliers-ahoy/424244/76 "2014-06-12T01:53:17Z")
Depending on which faction you side with, **Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines** can end with your death, or a fate worse than death (in which you’re chained inside a coffin and thrown into the deepest part of the ocean where you’ll be trapped alive for all eternity.) While not _the_ protagonist, Martin Septim sacrifices himself at the end of **The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion**. There’s also a side quest in which you must let someone kill you, after which the Daedra Molag Bal brings you back to life. ---
**Author:** ![oft\_wears\_hats](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7993a0/32.png) [@oft\_wears\_hats](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/oft_wears_hats)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2014, 2:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-where-the-protagonist-dies-at-the-end-spoliers-ahoy/424244/77 "2014-06-12T02:00:43Z")
I tend to die an awful lot at the end of FTL 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Kobal2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kobal2/32/20_2.png) [@Kobal2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kobal2)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2014, 10:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-where-the-protagonist-dies-at-the-end-spoliers-ahoy/424244/78 "2014-06-12T10:46:14Z")
> [@Ferret\_Herder](#): > > Baldur’s Gate 2, sorta/sometimes - Instead of being cleansed of your evil taint and returning to the world, you can choose to ascend to godhood and take over the role of your dead father, God of Murder - which will earn you a tearful/angry/cold/whatever goodbye from your lover if you’ve gotten involved romantically during the course of the game. > > Planescape: Torment - The **good** ending is you dying and being sent to hell to fight in an eternal battle, to atone for the sins you committed in previous lives. :eek: IIRC the endings do actually get worse from there… - Neverwinter Nights 2\* was one too, originally. It closed on a spiteful “rocks fall, everybody dies” (Obsidian writers were not happy with being forced to make yet another generic Forgotten Realms fantasy story, which shows throughout). It was retconned in \*Mask of the Betrayer \*though. The original \*Fallout \*is ambiguous : you save the day and you get exiled for your troubles. On the one hand, if you’re reached the end of the game you’re proooobably OK as a wasteland survivor, have ridiculous armour and an anti-aircraft-like gun to shred whatever’s in your way. On the other hand, the wasteland isn’t exactly a friendly place and the hero has no reason to keep on living any more. The last image we get of the Vault Dweller is him trudging alone, with slumped shoulders. I always figured he was fixing to die, back then. Of course, the sequel made it canon that he didn’t. > [@](#): > > Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, although you can pretty much see that one coming. Well, yeah. Cthulhu does eat 1d3 investigators per round, he’s no joke 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Superhal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Superhal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Superhal)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2014, 11:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-where-the-protagonist-dies-at-the-end-spoliers-ahoy/424244/79 "2014-06-12T11:01:40Z")
> [@Pushkin](#): > > The Civ games! You spend thousands of years getting your civilisation to the stars, you’re going to get a bit mouldy along the way 😃 When it first came out, the running joke was having 2,000 year old phalanx units defending your city against tanks and bombers, and often winning. In quite a few of the 80’s RPG’s like Phantasie and Might and Magic, characters aged and would die of old age. It usually got so annoying that your entire party was elves or another race that could live thousands of years. In Phantasie 1, you had to have a minotaur character to finish the game, and usually he was so old by the time you got to that part he probably had only one horn and was using a walker as his main weapon. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [June 12, 2014, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-where-the-protagonist-dies-at-the-end-spoliers-ahoy/424244/80 "2014-06-12T12:35:36Z")
In _Bioshock Infinite_, the game ends with the protagonist drowned by several alternate versions of his daughter years before the game begins. I think. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-where-the-protagonist-dies-at-the-end-spoliers-ahoy/424244.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/video-games-where-the-protagonist-dies-at-the-end-spoliers-ahoy/424244.md?page=5)