History Main / HeroMustSurvive

* In Skirmish games in ''DawnOfWar'', you can set "Assassinate" as a victory condition: if a team's hero unit is killed, that team is destroyed.
** The ''Dark Crusade'' expansion has this condition in two campaign battles: the primary objective to eliminate the Tau is to kill the ruling Ethereal, Aun'el Shi'Ores, while the primary objective to eliminate the Necrons requires your hero unit to personally deliver an explosive to the objective and return to your base; losing your hero costs you the battle.

** Amusingly averted in the Soviet Campaign in Yuri's Revenge where you get Boris and assault the time machine; if Boris dies before you get to the time machine, Lt. Zofia will lament his loss, before reassuring you that you can correct it since you're going to dick around with a time machine anyways. Sure enough when you do travel back in time (in the same mission) Boris will pop out of the Barracks. Zofia will then comment on how great it is to have him back, before he wonders what the hell she's talking about.

* ''VideoGame/AgeOfEmpiresI'' and II use this in the campaigns, and the hero is usually just slightly stronger than a regular unit so they're very impractical to use. Joan of Arc is a particularly Scrappy example of this. In skirmish games, the Regicide mission gives each player a totally useless (but [[FragileSpeedster quite nippy]]) king unit whose death loses you the game, and a castle for him to hole up in.

* ''TheDarkLegions'' does this over the course of its' second campaign. 90% of the time, it's a heavy calvalry unit that goes by the name of Theodoric, the rest is either a specified Knight or a King, or sometimes all of these.

* BattleNations averts this one. The heroes can die with no plot problems: they simply walk it off. The only "straight" version of this trope comes from the duels Morgan fights in, where his death is an instant loss condition.

* Several versions of ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}}'' have Regicide modes, giving you a fairly useless King unit where if it dies, you lose. The most notable use of the Regicide mode is probably the "Sengoku: Sword of the Shogun" scenario from ''Civilization III''[='=]s ''Conquests'' expansion, in which each House has a "Daimyo" unit representing the leader of the clan (e.g. if you're playing as the Oda, the "Daimyo" is called OdaNobunaga); unlike the "regular" King of Regicide mode, the "Sengoku" unit is a fairly strong unit, although using it on the battlefield can be a bit risky and many players prefer to just leave him as a defensive unit in the capital.

* ''Film/TheLordOfTheRings: The Battle For Middle-Earth'' used this in a few of its levels, though others you could just summon your heroes back at your base if you had enough money.

* ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings: The Battle For Middle-Earth'' used this in a few of its levels, though others you could just summon your heroes back at your base if you had enough money.

* ''TheLordOfTheRings: The Battle For Middle-Earth'' used this in a few of its levels, though others you could just summon your heroes back at your base if you had enough money.

* ''YggdraUnion'', ''BlazeUnion'', and ''KnightsInTheNightmare'' all feature this. In fact, all through the first chapter of ''BlazeUnion'', it's Game Over if ''any'' party member dies; this just gets less strict as the game progresses.

* ''VideoGame/AgeOfEmpiresI'' and II use this in the campaigns, and the hero is usually just slightly stronger than a regular unit so they're very impractical to use. Joan of Arc is a particularly Scrappy example of this. In skirmish games, the Regicide mission gives each player a [[RoyalsWhoNeverDoAnything totally useless]] (but [[FragileSpeedster quite nippy]]) king unit whose death loses you the game, and a castle for him to hole up in.

* The ''Alexander'' expansion of ''RomeTotalWar'' requires Alexander to survive in the campaigns and the historical battles.

* In ''ActOfWar'' most of the missions feature a named hero character who also appears in many of the cutscenes. He must be kept alive to preserve the story. However, whilst he is a little more powerful than his fellow units he is still a squishy foot soldier who can be easily wiped out if the player gets to aggressive or simply sends him off somewhere and forgets about him. Most of the time it is best to stick him in an APC for a bit of extra protection and then leave him in the main base.

** In ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}} III'', if you have a base in a particular mission then you can lose your hero without failing it, as you can simply revive him/her. If you don't have a base though, the mission will require you to keep them alive.

* In ''DawnOfWar'' There is an optional mission objective of 'assassinate' where you start with a hero and he/she must survive.

* Inherent in the original ''FinalFantasyTactics'', and in jagd in ''FinalFantasyTacticsAdvance'', but it has its roots in ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyVI'', where if the enemy gets to Terra in the first multi-party battle, it's game over. Also, if Banon dies in any Banon fight ever, game over.

* BattleNations averts this one. The heroes can die with no plot problems: they simply walk it off. The only "straight" version of this trope comes from the duels Morgan fights in, where his death is an instant loss condition.

** The original Tiberian Dawn didn't exactly have this mechanic, rather the commando was the only unit you controlled. Loosing him meant you lost all units you controlled, which is the default condition for Loss. Red Alert was the first one to start using this mechanic, where you can still have your entire compliment of troops there, but if you lose Tanya the mission would automatically fail. it was also the only lose condition that had a unique announcement (Tanya has been lost).

* ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}} II'' and the limited-forces campaign levels in ''VideoGame/{{Warcraft}} III''.

* Several versions of ''VideoGame/{{Civilization}}'' have Regicide modes, giving you a fairly useless King unit where if it dies, you lose. The most notable use of the Regicide mode is probably the "Sengoku: Sword of the Shogun" scenario from ''Civilization III''[='=]s ''Conquests'' expansion, in which each House has a "Shogun" unit representing the leader of the clan (e.g. if you're playing as the Oda, the "Shogun" is called OdaNobunaga); unlike the "regular" King of Regicide mode, the "Sengoku" unit is a fairly strong unit, although using it on the battlefield can be a bit risky and many players prefer to just leave him as a defensive unit in the capital.

** Similarly, in ''VideoGame/{{Starcraft II}}: Heart of the Swarm'', Kerrigan will represented in nearly every mission with a powerful, customizable hero unit. If she ever "dies", she can be rebuilt at a Hatchery; the developers explicitly stated that they wanted players to view her as a resource, not a burden. As for how she survives, dialogue in the mission "All In" in ''Wings of Liberty'', where she displayed a suspiciously similar mechanic, suggests she has a specialized sort of burrowing ability for just such an occasion.

** ''GodMars'' is a bad example of this - once God Mars appears in the game, he ''cannot die'' or you get a NonStandardGameOver. That's because there's a bomb placed in the Earth and if Takeru goes, the bomb goes off and it's over for everyone.

* In ''BattleRealms''' campaign, losing [[TheHero Kenji]] in the earlier levels is an instant loss. Once the keep has been unlocked, this restriction is waived as he can be re-summoned from it.