History Main / InjuredPlayerCharacterStage

** At the end of ''VideoGame/MassEffect3'', Shepard's armor is broken, and most of his/her skin is badly burned. You must walk, and then crawl, to the Reaper ship anyway, shooting a few enemies on the way with only your pistol.

** In ''Lego Indiana Jones'', at the beginning of the first level of the Temple Of Doom Indy is poisoned, can't jump and can only walk slowly. [[spoiler:The player has to bribe some mooks so they will give him an antidote.]]
** ''LEGO Lord of the Rings'' has two examples:

* Partway through Chapter 5 of ''VideoGame/DisgaeaHourOfDarkness'', Demon Prince Laharl is ambushed by monsters who start saying hopeful things like "Kindness!" and "Love!" Such words [[AllergicToLove are anathema to him]], as the bad guy of the chapter found out and exploits against Laharl, greatly weaknening him for the next couple of battles -- indeed, the player will notice that his base stats for these battles are cut in half until he finds a solution just before the BossBattle at the end of the chapter: [[spoiler: just putting in a pair of earplugs.]] Yeah, it's [[WidgetSeries that kind of game.]]

* ''VideoGame/MegaManZero2'': The game's intro continues from the ending from the previous game where Zero wanders off and fights a lot of mooks hounding him for a whole year, and it didn't appear that he has gotten himself repaired or even rested once during this time. As you're playing in the intro stage, you'll see that he always holds his shoulder (something you normally only see if his health is critical) and his weapon upgrades are [[BagOfSpilling lost from the previous game]]; the Triple Rod weapon from the previous game is also unusable because it's broken during the interim. His status screen is also the one from the first game, until it's updated to the one used in this game after the intro stage.

* Sam gets affected by the VX nerve gas in the Abandoned Mill stage of ''VideoGame/SplinterCell: BlackList'', which causes InterfaceScrew like blurred vision and a wobbling camera. Sam also starts coughing as the stage goes on, which can alert nearby enemies.

* In ''VideoGame/HaloReach'', On two campaign missions, the player starts out with less health than usual because of crash-landings in the previous cutscene. On the final campaign mission, "Lone Wolf", you simply fight Covenant forces for as long as possible. As you take damage, your visor starts cracking, impacting your view and wiping away your HUD display (ammo count, shield and health indicators) early on.

A sister trope of (and often overlapping with) ExpositoryGameplayLimitation. See also ControllableHelplessness and NoGearLevel. Compare/contrast PlotlineDeath, where a playable character is injured so badly by the story, they are no longer playable at all (and dead). A possible manifestation of YouCanBarelyStand.

A sister trope of (and often overlapping with) ExpositoryGameplayLimitation. See also ControllableHelplessness, IntoxicationMechanic and NoGearLevel. Compare/contrast PlotlineDeath, where a playable character is injured so badly by the story, they are no longer playable at all (and dead). A possible manifestation of YouCanBarelyStand.

* In ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigiSuperstarSaga'' when either of the titular heroes are at low health they move noticeably more sluggish while inputting action commands to dodge or parry enemy attacks.

Injured Player Character Stage is a video game trope and a subtrope of GameplayAndStoryIntegration. An injury taken by the PlayerCharacter in a cutscene or scripted event has an impact on their abilities in the next level. Movement is usually reduced to a slow limp, often staggering or collapsing periodically. Most of your abilities are usually locked, especially the ability to run or jump. Pressing one of these buttons might do nothing, or even cause your character to collapse. [[TropesAreFlexible Sometimes the player isn't injured as such, but their physical state is enough to affect the gameplay]], such as exhaustion.

Injured Player Character Stage is a video game trope and a subtrope of GameplayAndStoryIntegration. An injury taken by the PlayerCharacter in a cutscene or scripted event has an impact on their abilities in the next level. Movement is usually reduced to a slow limp, often staggering or collapsing periodically. Most of your abilities are usually locked, especially the ability to run or jump. Pressing one of these buttons might do nothing, or even cause your character to collapse.

This can have a powerful effect on the player, because, as the controller, they're intimately familiar with the character's abilities by this point, which makes the character's sudden limitations all the more real. Yet, the game isn't over, so as weak as they are, you have to proceed.

** Probably the most well-known is the train aftermath in the Himalayas that opens the second game, ''Among Thieves''. Nate is naturally slow due to being gut shot and low on energy, but once he defeats the onslaught of enemies after escaping the wreckage in the HowWeGotHere Chapter, the snowstorm means he's practically limping in his walk.
** The third game, ''Drake's Deception'', has a non-injury example in the Rub Al' Khali Chapter, a playable montage of Nate navigating the titular desert. What pushes it into this trope is that Nate is very obviously afflicted by the journey: he no longer walks entirely straight, has a terrible gait, and at certain points is reduced to crawling on his knees. In almost all of these scenes Nate will stumble to a stop if the player lets go of the left stick, and takes a moment to pick himself up when he gets moving again. The worst of these will result in Nate outright collapsing to the ground!

* ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'':

A sister trope of (and often overlapping with) ExpositoryGameplayLimitation. See also ControllableHelplessness and NoGearLevel. Compare/contrast PlotlineDeath, where a playable character is injured so badly by the story, they are no longer playable at all (and dead). A possible manifestation of YouCanBarelyStand.

** In ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid'' it's possible for Snake to contract a cold if you submit to Ocelot's torture, which causes him to periodically sneeze which guards can alert. Cold medicine can be found for it in B1 of the Nuclear Warhead Storage Building or Snake can tough it out and get over it naturally in time.

** Later in the same episode, after the rednecks beat up Sean, he has to limp on in the hot desert during the next scene. He moves very slowly. You can try to run, which makes him move a bit faster, but [[RealityEnsues after a time, he drops in exhaustion]].

* ''VideoGame/CrisisCoreFinalFantasyVII'' has the final battle of the game: [[spoiler:it's Zack's final stand, where he fights as long as he can against inexhaustible numbers of Shinra soldiers.]] As the battle goes on and Zack [[spoiler: inevitably loses his HP, he gets visibly tired and injured until it's to the point that he can barely stand, the DMW system is slowly breaking down and showing the player flashbacks of his friends, until he's lying on the ground bleeding to death [[TearJerker and the DMW gets stuck on... Aerith]] ]]. And the entire sequence is technically gameplay, albeit slightly altered for story purposes.

** Downplayed in ''VideoGame/HaloReach''. On two levels the player starts out with less health than usual because of crash-landings in the previous cutscene. On the final level [[spoiler:it overlaps with InterfaceScrew; your visor is cracked, preventing you from seeing how much ammo you have left.]]

* In ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyIX'', Garnet is injured ''psychologically'' after [[spoiler:her home kingdom is attacked and suffers heavy casualties with her unable to do anything to defend it as queen]]. For a while after this, she will occasionally fail to cast spells or or otherwise act in battle, and she also does not speak ingame at all during this section. The point in the game at which she recovers from this is marked with an ImportantHaircut.

** A borderline case happens in ''VideoGame/MassEffect2'', when you control Joker in a similar style to the example below. He hasn't been injured, but his natural delicate state makes it so he can only move slowly, dies the moment he enters combat, and is incapacitated if he falls down.

* Sam gets affected by the VX nerve gas in the Abandoned Mill stage of ''VideoGame/SplinterCellBlackList'', which causes InterfaceScrew like blurred vision and a wobbling camera. Sam also starts coughing as the stage goes on, which can alert nearby enemies.

** Toward the end of Chapter 6, [[spoiler:Arthur gets ambushed and injured by Micah Bell while in his final stages of TB. You have to fight off Micah for as long as you can, and if you went with John, you'll have to crawl over to Micah's revolver in the final part of the fight ''[[AdvancingBossOfBoom while he's chasing after you]]''.]]

This, however, also has the potential to result in quite a bit of FridgeLogic, especially if the Player Character frequently suffers such injuries in normal gameplay without suffering any other impairments than a tick down in their health meter, and even more so if they are able to quickly get over said injuries either by RegeneratingHealth or the use of [[HealThyself medkit pickups]]. The former raises the question of why the character can't just walk off this particular injury like all the others and the latter will necessitate absence of health pickups, which can come across as rather jarring when they were previously fond, if not in abundance, then at least with some frequency.