History Main / NonLethalKO

** And human enemies come to their senses. All of these are justified in ''Mother'' and ''Mother 2'', since all these things are under the influence of an alien with ultimate evil power on its side. When you defeat an enemy, you are usually just freeing it from the alien's mind control. Objects that stop moving are otherwise inanimate objects that simply revert back to their normal state. Party members will become unconscious instead of dying, ''but'' follow you as ghosts/angels until resurrected.

* In ''Franchuse/SonicTheHedgehog'' the enemies are non-sentient robots, and when destroyed a woodland critter of some kind is released, which merrily dashes away. So, not only are you not killing your enemies, but [[VideoGameCaringPotential you are actually doing a kindness]]. Most later games in the franchise do roughly the same thing, though some of those entries have had some or all of the robots instead drop [[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehogCD flower seeds]], [[VideoGame/SonicAdventure2 robot]] [[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog2006 parts]], or absolutely nothing upon defeat.

* In ''VideoGame/{{Siren}}'', this trope applies to the enemies, the shibito. Instead of being killed, a defeated shibito will only stay down just long enough for the player to escape before getting back up.

* In the ''Videogame/{{Yakuza}}'' series, defeated enemies are always shown holding their sides and begging for mercy but otherwise still very much alive. Even if you've impaled them with sharp objects, suplexed them into railings or even outright shot them with guns, no one dies in a fight. According to WordOfGod, Kiryu has never killed anyone except for in self-defense (which has mutated in the fandom to "Kiryu has never killed anyone", period); the fandom has, in turn, turned explaining how series antagonists survive some of the things Kiryu puts them through[[note]]such as smashing a urinal with a guy's face and then dropkicking him through a fourth story window, to just name one[[/note]] into a spectator sport, with the most overblown and ridiculous ones usually winning. If someone ''does'' die after a fight, it's because someone else finished the job, and the current PlayerCharacter is never pleased with it since nine times out of ten, they were just trying to defend themselves.

* The [[{{Bowdlerize}} Bowdlerized]] German version of Valve games such as ''Videogame/HalfLife'' and ''Videogame/CounterStrike'' has all the human characters death animation replaced by holding down on their sides like the Yakuza example above.

* Spellcard System rules in ''VideoGame/{{Touhou}}'' exist for this explicit purpose. Otherwise, the OneHitKill abilities of most high-level {{youkai}} would instantly end BarrierMaiden Reimu's career; ''a very bad thing'', considering [[DeadMansSwitch she is tied to the existence of the very border that keeps the setting together]]. (She even fights a ghost capable of killing with nothing but thinking about it. ''Imperishable Night'' proves she can do it without other people even noticing she's trying.)

** ''VideoGame/XCOMEnemyUnknown'' has the "critically wounded" status. A soldier has a small chance to drop unconscious and bleeding out from otherwise lethal damage. You have three turns to save them, either by finishing the mission or stabilizing them with a Medikit; a Support with the Revive skill can instead resuscitate them at 33% of their max health. Either way, the soldier takes a big hit to their [[MoraleMechanic Will]] and needs a long time in the base's medical wing to recover. The chance of critical wounds can be increased for high-rankers with the "Don't Die On Me" upgrade from the Officer Training School in the core game; with the ''Enemy Within'' ExpansionPack, that's replaced with the "Secondary Heart" gene mod – a soldier with this mod will be critically wounded the first time they take lethal damage in a mission, the amount of turns to save them is increased to five, and there's no Will loss from it.
** ''VideoGame/XCOM2'' has the same mechanics, but the critical wound is outright called "Bleeding Out", and another soldier can carry the one that's bleeding out and evac to the Skyranger with them to prevent their death. In addition to that, there's an actual Unconscious status where the unit is essentially dead unless revived by a Specialist's proper skills; melee strikes from [[TheMusketeer Stun Lancers]] and [[TheBrute Berserkers]] have a small chance of this that increases the lower the target's health is, anything that has its HP reduced to 0 by a [[SnakePeople Viper]]'s constricting bind will go Unconscious, and most of the special abilities of the [[KingMook Alien Rulers]] from the ''Alien Hunters'' {{downloadable|Content}} add-on have a high chance of sending your troops to la-la land. A unit that's Bleeding Out will also switch to Unconscious once stabilized.

* In the ''VideoGame/MarioAndLuigi'' series, the Mario bros and any named characters merely get knocked out or hurt if they run out of health in battle, with the Elite Trio in Dream Team even mentioning it by name (saying that all three have to be [=KOed=] at once for Mario to win). Though bosses often [[TechnicolorDeath explode]] after being defeated, this merely seems to a fancy version of EverythingFades unless it happens to a BigBad like Cackletta and Fawful, who are usually [[KnightOfCerebus evil enough]] to warrant being KilledOffForReal.

* ''VideoGame/PaperMario64'' doesn't have Mario's allies die or even pass out; because Mario's partners don't have HP, being attacked simply injures them and they can't be switched or fight until the injury recovers. Changed up in ''VideoGame/PaperMarioTheThousandYearDoor'' where Mario's allies have their own HP and they simply become unconscious if they are defeated, although they recover 1 HP after the fight is over. It is also implied Mario simply falls unconscious when his HP reaches zero ([[WeCannotGoOnWithoutYou but the game still ends if Mario is defeated]]), but there's several kinds of a NonStandardGameOver that show or at least imply that Mario actually dies.

* In the ''Videogame/{{Yakuza}}'' series, defeated enemies are always shown holding their sides and begging for mercy but otherwise still very much alive. Even if you've impaled them with sharp objects, suplexed them into railings or even outright shot them with guns, no one dies in a fight. According to WordOfGod, Kiryu has never killed anyone except for in self-defense (which has mutated in the fandom to "Kiryu has never killed anyone", period); the fandom has, in turn, turned explaining how series antagonists survive some of the things Kiryu puts them through[[note]]such as smashing a urinal with a guy's face and then dropkicking him through a fourth story window, to just name one[[/note]] into a spectator sport, with the most overblown and ridiculous ones usually winning.