History Main / CrueltyIsTheOnlyOption

* In ''VideoGame/{{Bully}}'', a lot of the unskippable missions involve you acting like a complete {{Jerkass}} (hey, it's in the title). In one, you have to sneak several racy pictures of a seventeen-year-old girl at the behest of Earnest, the leader of the Nerds.[[note]]This is mitigated somewhat after these pictures are posted across town by a third party and you take action to cover them up, though the damage is done by that point.[[/note]] In another, you have to plant evidence to get a teacher fired. In yet another, you help the gross cafeteria lady DateRape the chemistry teacher.

** Murdering ''everyone in Elysium'' in ''VideoGame/GodOfWarChainsOfOlympus'', as well as shoving away [[spoiler:Kratos's daughter]] as a quick-time event.

* The final missions of both ''VideoGame/{{Kindergarten}}'' and [[VideoGame/Kindergarten2 its sequel]] are heroic in nature, with the goal to [[spoiler:save one or several children from the evil principal]]. However, to unlock these missions you have to complete every other mission in the game, many of which require you to hurt or even kill many of the game's characters, including the ones who really don't deserve it. For example, one of the earlier missions in the second game requires you to help the AxCrazy janitor kill the other janitor, Bob, who is a certified NiceGuy. Fortunately, the game runs on a GroundhogDayLoop mechanic, meaning that your horrible actions are undone once the day is over.

* ''VideoGame/PoliceQuest 3'' has an example of this. Eventually, you will meet a jolly janitor who had just finished cleaning up the bathrooms. Cue Sonny clogging up a toilet with a whole roll of toilet paper, sending the janitor rushing off to fight against the flood to follow soon after just so Sonny can unlock his partner's locker in the women's bathrooms.

* In the [[FreewareGames freeware]] UsefulNotes/RPGMaker game ''VideoGame/{{OFF}}'', the player is more or less tricked by the protagonist The Batter (or forced, or encouraged, depending on how you view your role in the story) to kill each one of the leaders of the zones he enters. [[WouldHurtAChild This includes Hugo]], who the battle text describes as "a little boy" and is the creator of both The Batter and The Queen. He's so small and feeble that he can't even fight back, and you can't flee or do anything to get away, so you're forced to just beat him until he finally lets out one last weak little cough and fades out of existence.]]

* In the [[FreewareGames freeware]] UsefulNotes/RPGMaker game ''VideoGame/{{OFF}}'', the player is more or less tricked by the protagonist The Batter (or forced, or encouraged, depending on how you view your role in the story) to kill each one of the leaders of the zones he enters. This includes [[spoiler:The Batter [[TilMurderDoUsPart killing his wife The Queen,]] and finally Hugo, who the battle text describes as "a little boy" and was the one who created both The Batter and The Queen in the hopes of forging a bright future for all the world's denizens. He can't even fight back against The Batter--you can't flee or do anything to get away so you're forced to just beat him over and over until he finally lets out one last weak little cough and fades out of existence.]]

* At some point in ''Videogame/ItTakesTwo2021,'' Cody and May get it into their heads that their daughter's tears will break the spell that turned them into dolls, and thus they must make her cry. And they figure the best way to do so is to break her favorite toy, Cutie the Elephant. There is no way to dissuade them from this idea, even knowing it's wrong, and thus you must proceed to [[spoiler:murder Cutie, even as she cries out for help and begs for her life, even as they accidentally mutilate her in the process and she cries out in pain]]. And it doesn't even ''work''.

* ''VideoGame/DayOfTheTentacle'', and how. Winning requires you to knock a sleeping man onto the floor and steal his keys and sweater, take away a cat’s toy, shove a live hamster into the freezer, blow George Washington’s dentures out of his face with an exploding cigar, sabotage an artist (causing him to ruin his work and have an existential crisis), and squirt ink all over a man’s beloved stamp collection, greatly upsetting him and (in his words) ruining “years of therapy”. (Though it ''is'' disappearing ink, and you have the [[VideoGameCaringPotential the option of]] giving the collection back to him afterwards to show him the ink has vanished.) Then you have to go [[CrossesTheLineTwice push his elderly mother down the stairs]]. There’s also the matter of a clearly suicidal inventor named Dwayne, whom you have to trick into leaving his hotel room by giving him a letter inviting him to show off his inventions in Baltimore (stolen from someone else, thus ruining two lives in one fell swoop). [[FridgeHorror And what do you think he’ll do when he gets there and finds out he’s been had?]]

* In ''VideoGame/EtrianOdysseyI'', Chieftain Visil [[spoiler:orders you to exterminate the forest folk]]. Not much you can do about it, especially since you have to [[spoiler:kill about twenty of them]] to get at the fourth stratum's boss. Even worse, in the original game, Visil's rationale for this request? [[spoiler:To protect the town's tourism industry, which will suffer if the Forest Folk keep the dungeon from being explored. Worse, dialog with the Forest Folk implies that there was a long-standing agreement with them that Visil is breaking by doing this.]]\\\
This is both pointed out and made less reprehensible in the remake's Story Mode. It turns out that [[spoiler:the corruption of Yggdrasil's core is causing a contagious disease that causes the Forest Folk to mindlessly attack anyone in their way, and it's incurable. [[ShootTheDog Killing the infected is the safest thing for everyone.]]]] Nobody in the party is particularly happy about this, but it's a lot better than the implication in the original [[spoiler:that all the Forest Folk you killed were just trying to defend their homes]].

* In the final case of ''VisualNovel/PhoenixWrightAceAttorneyJusticeForAll'', you're [[ButThouMust forced]] to accuse someone who you know is innocent (not to mention more than a little [[TheWoobie Woobie-ish]] by that point) to buy time. And to make matters worse, [[spoiler:you also know by this point that you're defending an obviously guilty villain]]. The crowd even ''boos you'' for it. Almost guaranteed to make you feel like a terrible person.

* ''VideoGame/TheDig'' has a puzzle where you have to resurrect an alien turtle... thing with an explosive inside of it in order to blow up another animal once it eats it. It doesn't help that failing to resurrect the turtle properly causes it to come to life briefly and then ''melt away''.

* ''VideoGame/BeaconPines'': As a part of the teaching the player how Charms functions, they are at first restricted to only be able to use the Charm "Chill" once Luka and Rolo encounters Roxy, the latter's older sister, who angrily demands that Rolo comes home and does his house chores at once. This leads Luka to decide that the best way to deal with Roxy is to "be a little chill", resulting in him telling Roxy to relax and not be too hard on Rolo. This outcome, however, [[spoiler:ends up triggering the story's first Bad Ending]]. But the [[spoiler:first Bad Ending]] also unlocks the Charm new "Shit", which becomes the player's only avenue to continue the story. In this other version of events, Luka decides that the best way to deal with Roxy is to "be a little shit", resulting in him kicking Roxy in the shin and telling Rolo to make a break for it while she is distracted.

[[folder:Fighting Game]]

* ''[[TheLastStand The Last Stand at Union City]]'' requires you to break out of the safety of the stadium and kill living humans who try to keep you from escaping the city to progress. You also have to take with you a person who has clearly been bitten by a zombie, and [[DownerEnding the ending]] implies that [[NiceJobBreakingItHero this breach of the quarantine may spread the virus further]].

* In ''VideoGame/{{Blood}}'':

* In the original version of ''VideoGame/Persona3'', the Social Links with Yukari, Fuuka, Mitsuru, and Chihiro inevitably turn romantic after a certain point, so if you want to max out all your Social Links in one playthrough, you inevitably end up four-timing the girls involved. Luckily, in the subsequent two games, there's a point at which you're given the opportunity to confess to a romance option or keep things platonic.

* ''[[http://www.flanderskiller.com/play.html Homer the Flanders Killer]]'' involves killing Ned Flanders and his family (even the kids!) from ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons''.

*** The more vicious Daedric Princes order you to do horrible things for their artifacts (and you need to get all of them for an achievement). They usually involve betraying a companion or leading a good person to a horrible death. The less said about the things [[ImAHumanitarian Namira]], [[TheCorrupter Molag Bal]], [[BloodKnight Boethiah]], and [[YourWorstNightmare Vaermina]] demand of you, the better. That said, all of those are sidequests, and therefore don't have to be completed by the player unless you really want the rewards... although, the in-game rewards for these quests are ''good''. [[InfinityPlusOneSword Really]] ''[[GameBreaker damn]]'' [[ArmorOfInvincibility good]]. Namira and Vaermina's quests, at least, can be intentionally "failed" if you're not quite ready to step over the MoralEventHorizon. In Vaermina's quest in particular, many players have flat out found themselves ''unable to complete it'' and therefore miss out on the "Oblivion Walker" achievement because it involves betraying the very likable Erandur.

*** Depending on your choice, you either [[spoiler:indirectly kill the man that's supposed to be your son, brainwashed since he was kidnapped years ago to accept how Institute is the only way to save the world above, or betray your taught-by-experience ideals and let Institute publicly take control of The Commonwealth with you as the successor.]]

* In ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiSuperstarSaga'', a student from Woohoo Hooniversity is afflicted by Cackletta and Fawful's spell, and pleads with Mario and Luigi to save the rest of the college from their invasion, before [[ForcedTransformation forcefully transforming]] into a Laser Snifit. Mario and Luigi are then ''required'' to fight him, and once he's killed, he explodes out of existence like the rest of the enemies in the game. Even if you chicken out and have Mario and Luigi run from the fight, the post-battle explosion ''still'' happens.

*** The second [=DLC=], ''The Pitt'', is infamous for this reason. To complete it you must either [[spoiler:kidnap a baby from their parents or suppress a slave rebellion by killing their leader and most likely a whole lot of them. No [[TakeAThirdOption Taking a Third Option]] there.]]

*** [[PragmaticHero Mr. House's]] story route requires you to wipe out the Brotherhood of Steel's underground bunker. Wipe out as in personally kill each and every last person there, or activate the bunker's SelfDestructMechanism. He absolutely, positively ''will not'' even entertain the idea of any other kind of solution (though he does have his reasons, granted. [[spoiler:The ModularEpilogue shows that if the Brotherhood of Steel is allowed to roam freely in New Vegas, then they'll seize anything advanced from other people, ostensibly in the name of safety]]). Though according to a DummiedOut quest stage, it was originally possible to work out a peaceful solution between Mr. House and the Brotherhood. A GameMod exists that restores this option.
*** The other three ending paths will, at one point or another, require you to infiltrate the Lucky 38 and either execute a defenseless Mr. House in cold blood, or, [[CruelMercy if you're feeling particularly like a bastard]], [[spoiler:leave him alive, but disconnected from his computer network and slowly wasting away from infections that he is no longer able to fight off]]. Sure, Mr. House is, at best, a light gray in the BlackAndGrayMorality of New Vegas. However, the reason that the Mojave Wasteland is mostly livable (unlike, say, [[VideoGame/Fallout3 the Capital Wasteland]]) is because most of the nukes launched at Nevada were intercepted by the defenses he set up, and he's responsible for rebuilding the Strip and restoring Hoover Dam to a working condition. Once again a mod restores a DummiedOut option to convince Mr. House to ally with the NCR in that ending path, but the Wild Card and Legion paths still require you to take him out of the picture.

*** Depending on your choice, you either [[spoiler:indirectly kill the man that's supposed to be your son, brainwashed since he was kidnapped for all these years to accept how Institute is the only way to save the world above, or betray your taught-by-experience ideals and let Institute publicly take control of The Commonwealth with you as the successor.]]
*** [[spoiler:There is also how between Brotherhood of Steel and Railroad, if you join BOS, you have to choose between killing a bunch of underground idealists who want both human and synth live a free life, or if you join Railroad, you have to blow up BOS's supercarrier Prydwen, killing everyone on board, including children and teenagers.]]

* In ''VideoGame/EtrianOdyssey'', Chieftain Visil [[spoiler:orders you to exterminate the forest folk]]. Not much you can do about it, especially since you have to [[spoiler:kill about twenty of them]] to get at the fourth stratum's boss. Even worse, in the original game, Visil's rationale for this request? [[spoiler:To protect the town's tourism industry, which will suffer if the Forest Folk keep the dungeon from being explored. Worse, dialog with the Forest Folk implies that there was a long-standing agreement with them that Visil is breaking by doing this.]]\\\

** ''VisualNovel/DanganronpaTriggerHappyHavoc'': [[spoiler:The second trial comes about due to the stress of the mastermind threatening to reveal the everyone's darkest secret, and once you figure out that it was Mondo who killed Chihiro, you learn that his secret is that he blames himself for his brother Daiya's death; it wasn't his fault, but he believes it was, so that's how Junko holds it over him. You're forced to bring this secret to light, and it all becomes ten times worse when you realize that Mondo never even intended to hurt Chihiro in the first place--Chihiro had [[ManslaughterProvocation unintentionally reminded him of Daiya's death in a way that made Mondo snap and kill him]], and once he [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone realized what he did]], tried to stage the crime scene in a way that didn't reveal Chihiro's real gender (his secret was that he had been pretending to be a girl) which he had confessed to Mondo, as a way of trying to preserve Chihiro's dignity. The whole crime was a series of tragic events, and it's extremely hard to convict Mondo, especially when he decides to FaceDeathWithDignity but Ishimaru is begging for his life to be spared, even going so far as to [[TakeMeInstead vote for himself.]]]]

*** [[spoiler:Teruteru was actually trying to Komaeda from killing anyone at the party, but he accidentally wound up being the murderer. He had no intention of hurting anyone, but made it look that way to fool him. The trial ends with him begging for his mother, in tears, broken and wracked with guilt for killing The Ultimate Impostor, who only wanted to protect everyone from danger.]]

* In the [[FreewareGames freeware]] UsefulNotes/RPGMaker game ''VideoGame/{{OFF}}'', the player is more or less tricked by the protagonist The Batter (or forced, or encouraged, depending on how you view your role in the story) to kill each one of the leaders of the zones he enters. This includes [[spoiler:The Batter [[TilMurderDoUsPart killing his wife The Queen,]] and finally Hugo, who the battle text describes as "a little boy" and was the one who created both The Batter and The Queen in the hopes of forging a bright future for all the world's denizens. He can't even fight back against The Batter--you can't flee or do anything to get away so you're forced to just beat him over and over until he finally lets out one last weak little cough and fades out of existence.]]

* ''VideoGame/TheSecretWorld'' features a really depressing case of this in the Halloween mission "The Seven Silences". Having been tasked with investigating the suicide of one of [[TheChosenMany Gaia's Chosen]], you end up on a quest to gather the broken pieces of her [[TheSymbiote Bee]], following the directions in her dream journal and entering the enchanted dreams she used to destroy her connection to [[BigGood Gaia]]. Eventually, you make your way into the dream where her soul has been residing: by now, you know from her dream journal that this poor woman has been looking for a means of staying dead for the better part of thirty years; the final entry makes it clear she wants nothing more than [[WhoWantsToLiveForever an end to her immortality]] and the chance to be [[TogetherInDeath reunited with her son]]; [[spoiler: if you've played ''VideoGame/ThePark'', you know Lorraine hates herself and with good reason]]; her spirit even ''tells'' you [[UnwantedRevival she doesn't want to go back]], and actually kicks off a boss battle in a desperate attempt to dissuade you. So what do you do if you want to actually complete the mission? You reassemble her Bee and use it to bring her back to life.

* Every now and then in ''VideoGame/Wild9'', you'll come across obstacles in the area, where the only wat to bypass them is by grabbing random mooks with your TractorBeam and throwing them to create makeshift platforms over a path of spikes, [[GroundByGears shoving at least three of them into gears]] until the gears broke, [[ThrowTheMookAtThem throw mooks into the mouths]] of {{Man Eating Plant}}s as a distraction...

** Late in the game, you encounter [[spoiler: Sarah, the '''last human on earth'''. She's a mere husk of a human, kept alive by a machine. After helping you, Sarah asks you to please turn her life-support machine off. You can choose to not turn it off or you can, in which case she'll ask you to stay with her.]]

** The protagonist Simon isn't immune to this. [[spoiler: He learns that he is merely a copy of the original Simon's brain, put into a robot, while the real Simon died a good hundred years ago. Later, Simon needs to be transferred to another body and succeed... only to be told that they ''copied'' his brain, not transferred it. Meaning there is now a Simon copy lying around, unconscious for a few days, who will wake up without Catherine or any idea what went down last and be stuck in a dangerous area. Though Simon can choose to drain his battery, so that copy will die. ''And then'', at the end of the game, Simon's brain is copied once more onto The Ark. Meaning he is in his second body, but still stuck at the bottom of the ocean, and presumably surrounded by dangerous creatures, although the threat may be diminished if you poisoned the WAU beforehand.]]

* In the [[FreewareGames freeware]] UsefulNotes/RPGMaker game ''VideoGame/{{OFF}}'', the player is more or less tricked by the protagonist The Batter (or forced, or encouraged, depending on how you view your role in the story) to kill each one of the leaders of the zones he enters. This includes [[spoiler: The Batter [[TilMurderDoUsPart killing his wife The Queen,]] and finally Hugo, who the battle text describes as "a little boy" and was the one who created both The Batter and The Queen in the hopes of forging a bright future for all the world's denizens. He can't even fight back against The Batter--you can't flee or do anything to get away so you're forced to just beat him over and over until he finally lets out one last weak little cough and fades out of existence.]]

*** [[spoiler: Teruteru was actually trying to Komaeda from killing anyone at the party, but he accidentally wound up being the murderer. He had no intention of hurting anyone, but made it look that way to fool him. The trial ends with him begging for his mother, in tears, broken and wracked with guilt for killing The Ultimate Impostor, who only wanted to protect everyone from danger.]]

* ''VideoGame/AgarestSenki'' has a sudden DifficultySpike part-way through the third generation with the introduction of the boss [[ThatOneBoss Midas]]. He, and nearly every boss after, will have large area-of-effect attacks that ''will'' wipe out your party and a HealingFactor that negates most damage. Now, when a character dies, everyone else gets a huge amount of SP, which is used to fuel EX-skills... which are your only hope of killing those bosses. So what do most players resort to? Throwing their tank at the boss to keep them away from everyone else, letting the tank die, reviving them with their healer, and repeating until enough SP is stored to unleash hell.