History ShootTheShaggyDog / VideoGames

** The biggest complaint about the third game's controversial ending is that it's perceived as this. After the story of one human's choices shaping a galaxy, interactions between diverse sentient races, the development of relationships between people, etc. Then the last fifteen minutes of [[VideoGame/MassEffect3 the third game in the series]] throw all that away, [[{{Railroading}} remove all your options]], and give a (rather confusing) [[GainaxEnding artsy ending]], the most optimistic interpretation of which leaves [[spoiler:[[InferredHolocaust galactic civilization shattered, most characters doomed, and humanity in a new dark age]]]].
** [[spoiler: while the ending may not be very popular I don't think it counts as this, shepherd's actions weren't pointless, the galaxy may not be in the best state at the end of the game but it's better than all sentient life being wiped out by the reapers, this trope implies all of shepherd's actions were pointless when they weren't]]
** That may not be true anymore, given that enough of a fandom backlash has occurred that Bioware is rewriting the ending in question.

** [[http://www.l4d.com/comic/ The Sacrifice]] has its share of Shoot The Shaggy Dog moments and aversions. The comics take place immediately after the crew is rescued by the military [[spoiler: where they're kept in qurantine in a military camp slowly dissolving into anarchy, by guards who don't even know what Boomers and Smokers are. Also, it's revealed that Zoey had shot her father for no reason - he may not have zombified, but they took their cue from horror movies once he got bit. It ends with Bill sacrificing himself so that the other three can get to an island.]]

* ''{{Final Fantasy XIII-2}}'': Arguably. Timey-wimey stuff cancels out the seemingly happy ending from Final Fantasy XIII. The plot of this game centers around Serah searching for her sister Lightning who has vanished for no apparent reason. Various time paradoxes destroy progress made by the protagonists. [[spoiler: In the end, Serah and Mog die after beating the bad guy, Lightning is crystalised, and the bad guy [[UnexplainedRecovery gets better]].]]

* In ''{{Silent Hill 2}}'', while escorting Maria in the hospital, if she gets killed, most easily during the Pyramid Head chase, it's a NonStandardGameOver. However, all your hard work is apparently pointless, since she is scripted to die at the end of the chase sequence.
** Subverted, since [[spoiler: there's a lot more going on with Maria, who survives dying quite a few times.]] Nonetheless, SilentHill absolutely LOVES this trope. Consider:
*** In ''{{Silent Hill 1}}'', two endings [[spoiler: revolve around the protagonist not being able to save his daughter at all from the great demon, and possibly only delaying the EldritchAbomination from doing...whatever it was going to do.]]
*** In ''Silent Hill 2'', all endings [[spoiler: reveal the protagonist, originally sympathetic, murdered his wife and is being punished for it. In one ending, he commits suicide. In another, he takes the malevolent spirit who looks like his wife with him, with hints she will 'die' for the fourth time just as his wife did, and in one ending, he attempts a resurrection of his wife with spells from a world which would make Lovecraft wince. One ending, however, at least has him coming to terms with his inner demons and concludes with him moving on with his life.]]
*** In ''{{Silent Hill 3}}'', there is a NonStandardGameOver where the protagonist [[spoiler: is consumed by an evil spirit in a horrific scene]] and an ending where she [[spoiler: is possessed by a diabolic entity and kills the OnlySaneMan.]]
*** In ''{{Silent Hill 4}}'', one ending kills both protagonists horribly, one ending kills one protagonist and the other is lucky to survive, and a third leads to [[spoiler: an evil genus loci taking over the protagonist's apartment, with who knows what horror to come.]]

*** And finally, in ''SilentHillHomecoming'', [[spoiler: one ending sees the hero turned into a walking symbol of evil, one ending sees him drowned by his own father, one reveals it was all due to electroshock therapy at BedlamHouse]]. Oh, sure, the series has a couple of happy endings, somewhere...
*** And then, the joke endings traditionally show the protagonists make it through all that only to be [[spoiler: abducted by [[FlyingSaucer UFOs]]]], rendering the whole nightmare they went through moot.

** And then, it comes ''VideoGame/MortalKombat9''. Before being killed by Shao Kahn, Raiden sends a message to his self from ''[[VideoGame/MortalKombat MK1]]'' in order to prevent the Armageddon, thus making the game to clear every event and effort of each of the past games, barring ''VideoGame/MortalKombatMythologiesSubZero'' and ''VideoGame/MortalKombatSpecialForces'' for being prequels.

* ''{{Resistance}} 2''. [[spoiler: Your first act in the game is to watch the [[BigBad Big Bad]] make a shiny escape, and then lose your home base. Your second act is to lose your second base, but just narrowly manage to save the inhibitor serum, which keeps you from turning into something like the Big Bad. But that doesn't matter, because suddenly you're going from place to place without ever bothering to keep yourself safely injected. What follows is a series of battles that you ultimately fail to win each and every time. But that's okay. At the end, you've set us up the bomb, and killed the big bad of the game. You ride the nuclear wave out of the flagship, and land, albeit roughly. Too bad it doesn't mean a thing. Some big, scary floating rock now dots the atmosphere, Earth is still screwed, and to top it off, your hero has just turned. Then he is very shortly thereafter executed.]]

* In ''FinalFantasyCrystalChronicles: Echoes of Time'', [[spoiler: Larkeicus spent 2,000 years planning a way to restore the crystals to the world, building a tower miles high to reach the place the cataclysm would occur. It then occurs anyway, only BECAUSE of the methods he used in the process, and since he's there at the time it ends up killing him. To top that off, the only reason it happened so exhaustingly high in the sky was because he built the tower that high.]]

* Poor, ''poor'' [[StreetFighter Charlie]]... his death was a ForegoneConclusion (in ''Street Fighter II'', Guile's motivation was that Bison killed Charlie. Charlie's debut game was a {{Prequel}} with no Guile in sight). Charlie can never win. In ''Street Fighter Alpha'', he thinks he's defeated M. Bison, but Bison comes from behind and kills him. In ''Street Fighter Alpha 2'', a {{Remaquel}} of the original Alpha, he gets knocked off a waterfall in Venezuela, but only after getting shot by a Shadaloo helicopter. In the non-canon ''Marvel Super Heroes VS Street Fighter'', he's been given a FaceHeelTurn and works for Shadaloo. Somehow, in ''Street Fighter Alpha 3'', he's alive and well. This time, he actually manages to beat M. Bison... but Capcom fixed that by adding Guile to the home ports of the game and declaring his ending canon canon. In his ending, Charlie infiltrates M. Bison's base with Guile and Chun-Li, and while Guile and Chun-Li escape, the base self-destructs, killing Charlie and Bison both. What's worse is that Bison came back, while Charlie has been KilledOffForReal (or not, since Capcom loves {{Retcon}}ning this series).

* In the ''TwistedMetal'' series, competitors fight in a massive demolition derby with missiles, blowing up opposing cars, monuments, and cities with abandon. The prize? A wish granted by competition organizer Calypso, who wavers between LiteralGenie and JackassGenie . It rarely ends well, though occasionally someone ''will'' wise up and turn down the wish.

* ''DeadRising'' ends this way as well. The protoganist, Frank West, enters a shopping mall that later becomes overrun with zombies. Frank can go around the mall, gathering information on the outbreak and/or save the remaining survivors. [[spoiler: Of course, it ultimately doesn't matter, considering Carlito has infected a bunch of orphans, given them all a serum that delays the growth of the larva that turns them into zombies, and had them sent to various orphanages throughout North America, resulting in the infection's nation-wide spread. The rest of the world is left alone, but it can only be assumed that some infected people will cross into other countries.]] But then again, there ''is'' the sequel.

** [[spoiler: However, if you have a soul and rescue Cindy and you eventually get the good ending, then his sacrifice is not in vain. If you are a CompleteMonster and harvest the girl...well...then it invokes this trope.]]
** [[spoiler: Undermining this somewhat is a bug - if you return to the area where Meltzer is patrolling after killing him, another Big Daddy has taken his place. Killing this Big Daddy will yield [[GameplayAndStorySegregation ''another'' copy of Meltzer's final audio diary]].]]

** [[spoiler: Plus that means that the Creator isn't real, and you're NOT the Creator, which was the main gimmick of the series!!!]]

** In the sequel, this trope returns in spades. Private Allen [[spoiler: goes deep undercover with a terrorist cell killing hundreds of civilians in a Moscow airport - and then gets shot by the cell leader Makarov. When Russian authorities discover his body, they declare war on the U.S.]] Later, Ghost and Roach are dispatched to gather proof that Private Allen was innocent [[spoiler: and that there was no reason for the Russia and the U.S. to be at war. Roach then delivers the evidence to General Shepard - who then shoots him and Ghost dead, douse them with gasoline, and set them on fire amid Captain Price frantically radioing in that Shepard is not to be trusted. If only [[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbk71z4ldFc this]] had [[YouCantThwartStageOne actually worked...]] ]]

* The ending to ''RedDeadRedemption''. [[spoiler: Despite all the hardships John Marston had to go through to kill his partners in his old gang for the US government in order to get his family back, he's still gunned down by the government official that got him into the whole mess in the first place. Worst of all, John's son, Jack, dedicates the rest of his life to be a wandering gunslinger like his father in order to avenge his death, something John explicitly never wanted his son to be.]]

** Not just that ending. Ending 6, "Submarine", You walk into the main hall, and see [[spoiler: Ace, Santa, and Clover on the staircase, covered in blood. Along with Seven and Lotus, you flee through a series of rooms, which had been unlocked, util you reach the Sun Room. Akane lay dead, and you find the dead bodies Seven and Clover. With all of the others presumably dead, you run over and examine a strange submarine bobbing on the water. Then... you are stabbed and die, with all of your questions unanswered, and much more mysteries apparent.]]

* An In-Universe example happens in ''VideoGame/TheWorldEndsWithYou'' - Neku wins his first Game, Shiki is picked to [[ItWasHisSled come back to life]], and everything is happy.... but, really, you didn't expect the game to be ''that'' easy to win, did you? Not only can Neku not come back to life because only one person may be reborn each Game, [[BigBad The Conductor]] explains that because Shiki became the most important thing in the world to Neku, she's been taken as his Entry Fee. Everything Neku worked for during the first Week is negated. It gets even worse when, at the end of the second Week, The Conductor uses an equally trumped-up excuse to not only take away Neku's victory, but ''make it as if the second Week never even happened.'' [[spoiler: When Neku learns, at the end, that these were all created because ''Kitaniji literally '''could not''' bring him back'', and everything he ''thought'' he was playing for is a lie, he is, understandably, upset.]] Neku even lampshades this at one point during the third Week, where he's given up on the Game entirely - he tells Beat that even if he won, [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption Kitaniji would just come up with a stupid excuse to disqualify him.]] When, after the last events of the game, TheReveal (and a doozy it was), and [[spoiler:his apparent loss and (second) death at the hands of Joshua]], he believes everything to have been in vain, he wakes up in the exact manner he does at the beginning of each Game, in the Scramble, leading to believe he has to play ''again''. His literal "What the HELL!?" is big enough to have almost become a meme in itself. [[spoiler:Of course, the game itself ''isn't'' an example, and in fact, is the complete opposite - if it weren't for Neku, his growth as a character, and all of his and his partners' actions, Shibuya would either be destroyed, under the complete control of Kitaniji, or ruled by Minamimoto, and he does get to come back to life at the end and reunite with all of his friends... except one.]]

*** In ''Silent Hill 2'', all endings [[spoiler: reveal the protagonist, originally sympathetic, murdered his wife and is being punished for it. In one ending, he commits suicide. In another, he takes the malevolent spirit who looks like his wife with him, with hints she will 'die' for the fourth time just as his wife did, and in one ending, he attempts a resurrection of his wife with spells from a world which would make Lovecraft wince.]]

* The ending of ''Demonophobia'' is utterly cruel to its protagonist, whose goal it was to escape from Hell. For all that Sakuri goes through, she's rewarded by [[spoiler:being betrayed by the only being in the realm who is anything even resembling friendly to her, and after defeating him and preventing his full summoning back to Earth, it is learned that Sakuri won't be able to escape anyway until someone else tries to summon Ritz like she did. And because a year in Hell is equivalent to a very, very small fraction of a second on Earth, she is going to be stuck in Hell for a ''very, very long time''. And this isn't helped at all by Ritz restoring the memories of every single one of her horrible deaths, which serves to break her completely]].

* The video game version of ''IHaveNoMouthAndIMustScream'' was built with this in mind. There is only one way to win in any satisfying, [[MultipleEndings "good ending"]] kind of way. Either you get all the characters to face their personal demons and die with dignity, after which four of them sacrifice their lives to give the fifth one a chance to defeat AM once and for all but must continue to forever roam AM's deceased mind to make sure it stays that way, or the lone survivor is turned into an [[WhoWantsToLiveForever immortal]], [[NightmareFuelUnleaded hideous,]] [[AndIMustScream miserable monster]]. And apparently HarlanEllison, the original story's author, had initially objected to the good ending. And the part where the characters can die with dignity at all. In this sense, it's entirely true to the original story.

* ''ChronoCross'' retroactively does this to ''ChronoTrigger'', by revealing that [[spoiler: the kingdom of Guardia was destroyed, with most of the cast living in 1000 AD implied to be destroyed, between the events of the two games, the residents of the timeline canceled by the ''Trigger'' heroes were sent to the Darkness Beyond Time, and the first game's BigBad took on a new, even more dangerous form. Whether these things render the entire plot of ''Trigger'' pointless or merely explore a darker side of it is up to interpretation.]]

* ''Kya: Dark Lineage'' ended on what seemed to be a happy note with the heroine defeating the BigBad and restoring peace to the alternate world... until the artifact that was supposed to take the heroine and her brother home dumps them in a desolate world where it's implied they're eaten by a monster. OK...
* ''Chakan: The Forever Man'' ended like this: Chakan, a soldier [[CursedWithAwesome cursed with immortality]] until he destroyed all supernatural evil because he bested Death in a duel, never gets his final rest in any of the two final endings you can get. After he has 'rid the elemental and terrestrial planes of evil', Chakan impales himself with his own swords, only to be brought back to life by Death and mocked that, since there are countless planets in the universe that still have evil in them and he can never visit them all, his task will remain unfinished forever. You then duel Death. Be defeated, and Chakan will lament that his final rest can wait as he is still bound by his deal with Death. Defeat Death, and the game ends by showing you an hourglass that never empties: Death can't release you if you kill him. Either way, the plot Shoots the Shaggy Dog by ''not'' allowing Chakan to die at the end.

* The basic plot of ''Wizardry 7: Crusaders of the Dark Savant'' goes like this: "There's a MacGuffin hidden on this planet. The Dark Savant is looking for it. Find it before he does, and don't let him have it." During the game's ending, after you've killed the Dark Savant and finally found the MacGuffin, the ''real'' Dark Savant shows up, [[HostageForMacGuffin hostage in hand]], and demands that you hand it over in exchange for [[MadScientistsBeautifulDaughter the girl you met earlier]]. The game actually lets you [[MultipleEndings choose whether or not to hand it over]], but if you decide to keep the MacGuffin, he just kills your party and takes it from your corpse. If you agree to the exchange, he gives you the girl, you give him the MacGuffin, and he goes off into space, with your characters in pursuit. Either way, you completely failed in your mission. [[SequelHook Cue the sequel.]]

* ''Driver 3'': Tanner shoots Jericho, but spares his life. Then Jericho gets back up and shoots Tanner, who is last seen flatlining, the doctors attempting CPR. The game wasn't received so well, then there was the InNameOnly ''Parallel Lines'', which was the final nail in the coffin. RIP ''Driver''.

* Divinity 2. In the end, it turns out you have been manipulated by the villain's girlfriend the entire game. You end up resurrecting her, making the villain invincible, and then find yourself imprisoned in some sort of crystal, alive and conscious to watch the world you tried to save burn. That's not even to mention what this does to the already trashed reputation of the dragon knights from their last accidental betrayal of mankind. It's probably a good thing you are the last one.

* At least one of the endings in ''Gunstar Super Heroes'' has the entire Gunstar team dying pointlessly.

* ''Robotron 2084'' is an EndlessGame that can't technically be won, then the sequel, ''Blaster'' retroactively shoots the shaggy dog, since it is revealed that the last human family has in fact been killed.

* ''{{Final Fantasy XIII-2}}'': Arguably. Timey-wimey stuff cancels out the seemingly happy ending from Final Fantasy XIII. The plot of this game centers around Serah searching for her sister Lightning who has vanished for no apparent reason. Various time paradoxes destroy progress made by the protagonists. [[spoiler: In the end, Serah and Mog die after beating the bad guy, Lightning is crystalised, and the bad guy [[IGotBetter gets better]].]]

* ''KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'' starts on the planet Taris, which has several side quests such as helping innocent people escape from bounty hunters (or killing them) and finding a cure for the [[TheVirus rakghoul disease]]. As soon as you leave Taris, [[BigBad Malak]] [[KillEmAll fires on the planet from orbit and kills everyone.]] Even the HopeSpot you ear playing light side is turned into a twisted joke by the MMO. [[spoiler: The Outcasts found their Promised land, and survived for a few generations, only to be picked off by rakghouls, disease, starvation, and finished off by toxic waste.]] Then again, the MMO ''is'' BioWare post-DragonAge, so NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished.
** Oh, and the Shaggy Dog is used for target practice ''well'' after that. The ''second'' planet you visit, with its nice peaceful farms is nuked by Malak. In the CrapsackWorld of the sequel, Exile goes back to find ''everyone'' lays the blame for it squarely on the Jedi...even Exile, who wasn't even there, and ultimately turns the dog into a bloody pulp in the upcoming [=MMO=] by having [[spoiler: Revan and Exile leave everyone and everything they loved behind to wait and wonder (Bastila is left knocked up, starting a line that eventually results in Satele Shan) while they go charging in to fight the True Sith. Exile is at least [[StuffedIntoTheFridge killed outright]], but Revan [[AndIMustScream isn't]] so [[FateWorseThanDeath "fortunate"]]. Oh, and the Sith come back and burn the Republic anyway, meaning it was pretty much all for nothing]].

* ''KnightsOfTheOldRepublic'' starts on the planet Taris, which has several side quests such as helping innocent people escape from bounty hunters (or killing them) and finding a cure for the [[TheVirus rakghoul disease]]. As soon as you leave Taris, [[BigBad Malak]] [[KillEmAll fires on the planet from orbit and kills everyone.]] Even the HopeSpot you ear playing light side is turned into a twisted joke [[spoiler: The MMO reveals that the Outcasts found their Promised land, and survived for a few generations, only to be picked off by rakghouls, disease, starvation, and finished off by toxic waste.]] Then again, this ''is'' BioWare post-DragonAge, so NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished.
** Oh, and the Shaggy Dog is used for target practice ''well'' after that. The ''second'' planet you visit, with its nice peaceful farms is [[spoiler: nuked by Malak. In the CrapsackWorld of the sequel, Exile goes back to find ''everyone'' lays the blame for it squarely on the Jedi...even Exile, who wasn't even there]], and ultimately turns the dog into a bloody pulp in the upcoming [=MMO=] by having [[spoiler: Revan and Exile leave everyone and everything they loved behind to wait and wonder while they die alone and horribly to try and stop the True Sith - who come back and turn Coruscant into a bloodbath anyway]].

*** There are also hints that Jedi Master Satele Shan, who is descended from Bastila Shan and plays an instrumental part in the war with the True Sith, is also Revan's descendant, after Bastila hooked up with him.

* ''MassEffect'' is the story of one human's choices shaping a galaxy, interactions between diverse sentient races, the development of relationships between people, etc. Then the last fifteen minutes of [[VideoGame/MassEffect3 the third game in the series]] throw all that away, [[{{Railroading}} remove all your options]], and give a (rather confusing) [[GainaxEnding artsy ending]], the most optimistic interpretation of which leaves [[spoiler:[[InferredHolocaust galactic civilization shattered, most characters doomed, and humanity in a new dark age]]]].

* The ending of ''{{Demonophobia}}'' is utterly cruel to its protagonist, whose goal it was to escape from Hell. For all that Sakuri goes through, she's rewarded by [[spoiler:being betrayed by the only being in the realm who is anything even resembling friendly to her, and after defeating him and preventing his full summoning back to Earth, it is learned that Sakuri won't be able to escape anyway until someone else tries to summon Ritz like she did. And because a year in Hell is equivalent to a very, very small fraction of a second on Earth, she is going to be stuck in Hell for a ''very, very long time''. And this isn't helped at all by Ritz restoring the memories of every single one of her horrible deaths, which serves to break her completely]].

* ''MassEffect'' is the story of one human's choices shaping a galaxy, interactions between diverse sentient races, the development of relationships between people, etc. Then the last fifteen minutes of [[VideoGame/MassEffect3 the third game in the series]] throw all that away, [[{{Railroading}} remove all your options]], and give a (rather confusing) [[GainaxEnding artsy ending]], the most optimistic interpretation of which leaves [[spoiler:[[InferredHolocaust galactic civilization shattered, most races doomed, and humanity in a new dark age]]]].

* ''MassEffect'' is the story of one human's choices shaping a galaxy, interactions between diverse sentient races, the development of relationships between people, etc. Then the last fifteen minutes of the third game in the series throw all that away, remove all your options, and give a (rather confusing) artsy ending, the most optimistic interpretation of which leaves [[spoiler:galactic civilization shattered, most races doomed, and humanity in a new dark age]].

* MassEffect is the story of one man's choices shaping a galaxy, interactions between diverse sentient races, the development of relationships between people, etc. Then the last fifteen minutes of the third game in the series throw all that away, remove all your options, and give a (rather confusing) artsy ending, the most optimistic interpretation of which leaves galactic civilization shattered, most races doomed, and humanity in a new dark age.

*** In ''SilentHillOrigins'', one ending leaves the protagonist trapped in asylum-like surroundings and given sinister injections by mysterious hooded individuals, as well as [[spoiler: strongly hinting that the protagonist is in fact the serial murderer known as the Butcher]].

* In ''ShadowOfTheColossus'' [[spoiler:while you bring Mono back to life, she gets trapped in the forbidden world to presumedly starve to death; Wanda dies and is reborn as a baby (to starve to death as well); the Dormin have been resealed and the people who killed Mono in the first place get away without a problem. And Agro has a limp. It would have been best had Wanda never set of on his quest at all]].

* An In-Universe example happens in TheWorldEndsWithYou - Neku wins his first Game, Shiki is picked to [[ItWasHisSled come back to life]], and everything is happy.... but, really, you didn't expect the game to be ''that'' easy to win, did you? Not only can Neku not come back to life because only one person may be reborn each Game, [[BigBad The Conductor]] explains that because Shiki became the most important thing in the world to Neku, she's been taken as his Entry Fee. Everything Neku worked for during the first Week is negated. It gets even worse when, at the end of the second Week, The Conductor uses an equally trumped-up excuse to not only take away Neku's victory, but ''make it as if the second Week never even happened.'' [[spoiler: When Neku learns, at the end, that these were all created because ''Kitaniji literally '''could not''' bring him back'', and everything he ''thought'' he was playing for is a lie, he is, understandably, upset.]] Neku even lampshades this at one point during the third Week, where he's given up on the Game entirely - he tells Beat that even if he won, [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption Kitaniji would just come up with a stupid excuse to disqualify him.]] When, after the last events of the game, TheReveal (and a doozy it was), and [[spoiler:his apparent loss and (second) death at the hands of Joshua]], he believes everything to have been in vain, he wakes up in the exact manner he does at the beginning of each Game, in the Scramble, leading to believe he has to play ''again''. His literal "What the HELL!?" is big enough to have almost become a meme in itself. [[spoiler:Of course, the game itself ''isn't'' an example, and in fact, is the complete opposite - if it weren't for Neku, his growth as a character, and all of his and his partners' actions, Shibuya would either be destroyed, under the complete control of Kitaniji, or ruled by Minamimoto, and he does get to come back to life at the end and reunite with all of his friends... except one.]]

* An In-Universe example happens in TheWorldEndsWithYou - Neku wins his first Game, Shiki is picked to [[ItWasHisSled come back to life]], and everything is happy.... but, really, you didn't expect the game to be ''that'' easy to win, did you? Not only can Neku not come back to life because only one person may be reborn each Game, [[BigBad The Conductor]] explains that because Shiki became the most important thing in the world to Neku, she's been taken as his Entry Fee. Everything Neku worked for during the first Week is negated. It gets even worse when, at the end of the second Week, The Conductor uses an equally trumped-up excuse to not only take away Neku's victory, but ''make it as if the second Week never even happened.'' [[spoiler: When Neku learns, at the end, that these were all created because ''Kitaniji literally '''could not''' bring him back'', and everything he ''thought'' he was playing for is a lie, he is, understandably, upset.]] Neku even lampshades this at one point during the third Week, where he's given up on the Game entirely - he tells Beat that even if he won, [[FailureIsTheOnlyOption Kitaniji would just come up with a stupid excuse to disqualify him.]] When, after the last events of the game, TheReveal (and a doozy it was), and [[spoiler:his apparent loss and (second) death at the hands of Joshua]], he believes everything to have been in vain, he wakes up in the exact manner he does at the beginning of each Game, in the Scramble, leading to believe he has to play ''again''. His literal "What the HELL!?" is big enough to have almost become a meme in itself. [[spoiler:Of course, the game itself ''isn't'' an example, and in fact, is the complete opposite - if it weren't for Neku, his growth as a character, and all of his and his partners' actions, Shibuya would either be destroyed, under the complete control of Kitaniji, or ruled by Minamimoto, and he does get to come back to life at the end and reunite with all of his friends... except one.]]

* Activision's ''Apocalypse''. At the end, Trey has defeated the Four Horsemen, and confronts the BigBad Reverend himself. But before Trey can take him down, the Rev blasts him with lightning and [[YouAreTheDemons transforms Trey into one of the demons.]]

* In ''TheDarkness II'', Jackie finally breaks through all of the lies and deceit of the Darkness to find [[spoiler:Jenny's trapped soul in the Realm of Darkness. He manages to free Jenny, defying the Darkness's warnings, getting a [[CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming touching moment with the woman he loves]].]] After the credits, though, ItGotWorse. [[spoiler:The game [[PlayerPunch makes the player let go of Jenny]] before she transforms into the ArchEnemy of the Darkness, the [[LightIsNotGood Angelus]]. The Angelus escapes from the Realm of Darkness, leaving Jackie trapped there with no way out, and having the woman he worked so hard to save not only fly away, but become his most powerful enemy, deadset on killing him.]]

* At the end of ''GrandTheftAutoIII'', our hero is implied to have flipped out and ''literally shot'' the shaggy dog, i.e. Maria, who he went through all that trouble to rescue. This is one of the few times this is played for laughs.
* The diamond subplot in ''GrandTheftAutoIV''. Practically every criminal organization (and there are a lot) in the city gets involved in one way or another trying to steal a bag of diamonds the size of your fist. At the end of a long shootout, one of Bulagarin's men throws the bag into a passing truck full of mulch. Newspapers later report that the diamonds are found by a homeless man.

* ''{{Persona 3}}'''s Bad Ending can be considered as an example of this trope. [[spoiler: The protagonist and the rest of SEES not only accidentally release the SealedEvilInACan ( [[BigBad Nyx]] ) But then are given the chance to kill him while he's still in human form. If the protagonist decides to do so, The Memories of the Entire SEES team are wiped and they lose their ability to summon persona [[XanatosGambit (Which removes the only chance they have of defeating Nyx)]]. Not only that, but they also Lose all their memories and friendships garnered during the previous year. The game then Fast Forwards to the end of the school year, which has the protagonist, [[ChivalrousPervert Junpei]] and [[TheChick Yukari]] singing karaoke, drinking, and partying their hearts out, Unaware that the end of the world is nearly upon them...]]

* In Stephen Berkoff's ''The Trial'', Joseph K spends the entire play trying to fight a trial he doesn't understand in a world that is set firmly against him. He collapses and dies in a cathedral in the final scene, no closer to understanding or accomplishing anything than at the beginning.
** And the bad thing is, that's actually ''better'' than what winds up happening to him in Kafka's book.
* Does the protagonist of Elmer Rice's play ''The Adding Machine'' avoid being executed for murdering his boss? No. Does he [[spoiler:have a chance of doing better in his next life]]? No, [[spoiler:each time he is reincarnated, he gets worse]]. Does he at least [[spoiler:get the companion promised to him, a nice-looking woman called Hope]]? No. That's the situation when the final curtain falls.
** A similar fate befalls Mr. Zero in the [[AllMusicalsAreAdaptations musical version of the play.]]
* In ''Urinetown,'' Protagonist Bobby Strong inspires the poor to lead a revolution against the evil Caldwell B. Cladwell, who has gotten private toilets outlawed, charges exorbitant fees for the use of his public toilets, and has his corrupt police force take anyone who subverts his goals to the titular Urinetown [[spoiler:(which is in fact simply being thrown from the tallest rooftop in town)]]. In the end, Bobby himself is taken to Urinetown before he can see the revolution through to fruition, and once the poor wins out, and everyone can pee for free, the town's water supply quickly dries up and everyone dies horribly [[spoiler: while the inspiring victory music of the finale continues to play.]]
* The plot of the musical "Chess" revolves around the romance between the Russian chess champion Anatoly and the American second, Florence. The London and Broadway versions differ in the details, but the ending remains roughly the same in both. Anatoly defects to the United States. In an effort to get him back into the fold, the Russian powers that be offer to release Florence's father, a Hungarian revolutionary who vanished during the 1956 Budapest uprising, if he loses the match and comes back to Russia. In the end Anatoly decides that he cannot hurt Florence by keeping her from her father, so he defects back to Russia. [[spoiler:It doesn't matter anyway, since the man the Russians release is actually a captured American spy, as part of a deal with the CIA. Florence's father is probably dead. Anatoly has given up Florence and the match for nothing much at all.]]
* As well as the example in the Literature section, the song "Turning" in ''[=~Les Misérables~=]'' is one long LampshadeHanging of this trope, although the first line is somewhat stupid when you consider that most of the dead students had participated in the 'successful' July Revolution 2 years before.

->''They were schoolboys, never held a gun\\
Fighting for a new world that would rise up like the sun\\
Where's that new world, now the fighting's done?\\
Nothing changes, nothing ever will\\
Every year, another brat; another mouth to fill\\
Same old story, what's the use of tears?\\
[[GodIsDead What's the use of praying when there's nobody who hears?]]''