History Main / HostageSpiritLink

** Subverted at least by name in ''[[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedII ACII]]'' and onwards. Your synchronization and health are not the same anymore, though when you kill a civilian, you still get desynch'ed for each one - up to a point. Kill three and the game just reloads you to a checkpoint nearby. However, this has the opposite of the intended affect in practice, since checkpoints are so frequent (you get a checkpoint every time you do anything remotely significant) and since you are always respawned with full health, so killing civilians to desync yourself is an excellent way to restore your health for free.

* This is what made the not-so-final boss of the UsefulNotes/GameBoyColor game ''[[VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaOracleGames The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages]]'' difficult. Defeat the boss using a specific sequence of attacks? Easy, given time to figure out which ones. But the boss is holding your [[spoiler:friend's]] ancestor (sorta) hostage, and hitting the ancestor drains Link's life instead.

* ''VideoGame/LethalEnforcers'' featured both hostages/civilians and fellow police officers that, when shot, would detract a life from the player.

* In ''VideoGame/MissionImpossibleKonami'' for the Platform/{{N|intendoEntertainmentSystem}}, a top-down action-adventure, the fourth level boss uses Shannon Reed as cover. Accidentally hitting her will instead cause you to lose health. Fortunately, you have a fair few hitpoints, so this isn't devastating unless you're really inaccurate.

* ''VideoGame/{{Teraburst}}'' contains fleeing civilians who happily runs ''into'' the middle of shootouts, even as you're busy dealing with waves and waves of alien mooks. Shooting them by accident remove points from your score. A stage set in Louisiana's beaches takes it to the extreme by penalizing you for shooting ''seagulls''.

* In ''VideoGame/DynamiteHeaddy'', one of the bosses holds love interest Heather in its hand, and uses her as a shield to cover its face. Accidentally hitting her causes her to retaliate

* In ''VideoGame/MissionImpossibleKonami'' for the UsefulNotes/{{NES}}, a top-down action-adventure, the fourth level boss used Shannon Reed as cover. Accidentally hitting her would instead cause you to lose health. Fortunately, you had a fair few hitpoints, so this wasn't devastating unless you were really inaccurate.

* ''VideoGame/ModernWarfare'' also has somewhat like the ''America's Army'' example above in the first level of the second game - you're timed for a run through a live-fire course with pop-up targets to [[LeaningOnTheFourthWall determine what difficulty you're ready for]]. Killing civilians docks your overall score - in the Special Ops version of the course, where you're scored with one to three stars depending on how fast you finish the course, if you hit ''any'' civilians you're only getting two at best.
* In ''VideoGame/PAYDAYTheHeist'' has civilians, which can be taken captive, left alone or killed. The more civilians you have captured, the longer times you get between assault waves. Causing them even the slightest amount of damage kills them however, which ramps up the enemy difficulty, costs you money from your reward, and increases the time it takes for you to be traded out of custody if you're caught.

* ''VideoGame/HaloReach'' causes Noble Six to die the moment s/he kills a civilian, even accidentally. This may lead to some frustration if you're trying to save that first civilian on New Alexandria and you forgot you had a Needler out.

* ''VideoGame/GunfighterTheLegendOfJesseJames'' have innocent bystanders in several levels. Killing them cost you 1 out of your four life points.
* Notoriously bad in the ''VideoGame/VirtuaCop'' series, where, after seeing you blast away hordes of terrorists, a civilian will ''always'' leave the safety of their cover to wave their arms at you wildly.
** In ''[=VC3=]'' there's one bit where two civilians stand up, and then one pulls a gun on you. You don't lose a life for shooting him ''but it counts as a civilian shot on your score''. And yes, he does shoot you if you don't do anything.
** And it's more annoying because you appear to be firing some kind of non-lethal taser bullets anyway. Well, assuming you didn't grab that magnum, SMG or shotgun powerup.

** The game takes this trope to the next level by [[HeWhoFightsMonsters turning you into an alien]] [[AndThenJohnWasAZombie and tasking you with killing soldiers]] in a special mode if you consciously off your buddies and don't kill any of the proper targets.

*** Plus, in ''House Of The Dead 4'', you've got a freakin' [[MoreDakka machine gun]]!!

* In ''VideoGame/DynamiteHeaddy'', one of the bosses holds love interest Heather in its hand, and uses her as a shield to cover its face. Accidentally hitting her reduces your health.

** In the original ''VideoGame/MetalGear1'' for [=MSX2=] and NES, shooting a hostage would cause you to be demoted to the previous rank, which resulted in reduced maximum health and carrying capacity. Given that you had to be of a certain rank to get a specific item needed to beat the game, and rank was gained by rescuing hostages, of which there were only ''barely'' enough to reach the maximum rank if you didn't shoot any of them, this usually resulted in making the game {{Unwinnable}}. One of the bosses, Coward Duck (or Dirty Duck if you're playing one of the re-releases), actually uses this trick to kill you.
** In ''VideoGame/MetalGear2SolidSnake'', shooting a child caused Snake to take damage.
** ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' does this pretty directly: the fight with Ocelot centers around a hostage hooked up to quite a lot of explosives. Accidentally ([[VideoGameCrueltyPotential or not]]) shooting him causes the entire room to explode, instantly killing you. [[WhatTheHellPlayer And Ocelot will call you an idiot]]. In the same game, killing Meryl will result in an instant game over. Harming her in any way outside of your Manchurian Candidate fight just before Psycho Mantis actually shows himself results in the bitch-slap from hell (although it doesn't actually take away a whole lot of health, but it ''does'' send Snake flying like he got hit with a missile). Fortunately there weren't a lot of other hostages to avoid.

** Subverted at least by name in ''[[VideoGame/AssassinsCreedII ACII]]'' and onwards. Your synchronization and health are not the same anymore, though when you kill a civilian, you still get desynch'ed for each civilian killed - up to a point. Kill three and the game just reloads you to a checkpoint nearby. However, this has the opposite of the intended affect in practice, since checkpoints are so frequent (you get a checkpoint every time you do anything remotely significant) and since you are always respawned with full health, so killing civilians to desync yourself is an excellent way to restore your health for free.

** The best use of this in ''Snatcher'', though, is right at the end of the Sega CD version, when Gillian leaps into a room and sees a figure. Shooting the figure will give you a game over - it's Jamie, Gillian's wife.

* In the ''VideoGame/{{Police 911}}'' series, you don't actually die, you just get treated to a time-wasting cutscene, and you lose a few ranks. The same applies to ''Lethal Enforcers 3'', in which it shows a news headline reading "[occupation of civilian] shot by mistake."

* In ''VideoGame/FalloutNewVegas: Dead Money'', your companions' [[ExplosiveLeash bomb collars]] are linked to yours, so if they die, you die.

* In the old Amiga game ''Gunshoot'', you're manning a bank and have to receive money from customers, as well as shoot any robbers that come in. If a robber shoots you, you die, but if you shoot an innocent customer (or shoot the poncho-clad robber before he's drawn his gun) you also die, with the odd game over message "You lost your brayn."