History ShootTheShaggyDog / VideoGames

** The story of Sigurd and most of his army plays out like this thanks to his status as a FailureHero. He rescues a friend from a suddenly-aggressive neighbor in the first two chapters. When he tries again with a second friend trapped in a similarly-aggressive neighbor, nothing he does can save that friend from death. He marries a woman marked with a terrible fate, and then she disappears. Then Sigurd is framed for treason because his own country has used him as a UsefulIdiot to conquer the first two. When Sigurd tries to return home and clear his name, he kills the conspirators against his family--which plays into the hands of Arvis, his most dangerous foe. Arvis lures him in for the kill by promising a pardon, then turns on him, reveals he's married Sigurd's brainwashed wife, and brutally murders him before becoming ruler of TheEmpire that Sigurd has accidentally built.

** And then comes ''VideoGame/MortalKombat9''. Before being killed by Shao Kahn, Raiden sends a message to his self from ''[[VideoGame/MortalKombat1 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.

* ''VideoGame/GameOfThronesTelltale'': If the player chooses to have Mira reject Lord Morgryn's proposal in the final episode, she will be executed for the murder of the Lannister guard earlier in the season. That means that Mira spends six full episodes just failing over and over to contact her family or win over any allies in King's Landing, no matter what choices the player makes. Since she's the only playable character not to have any direct on-screen contact with any of the other main characters, her story could almost be removed from the season without disrupting the plot, and her death curtails any possibility that she'll be able to actually achieve something in the (now cancelled) sequel.

* The two {{bad ending}}s of the story mode of ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate'' ''World of Light'' end as such if you don't meet the conditions to face both of the {{big bad}}s at once by the end of the game: If you defeat just one of the two villains at the end of the game (whether by just facing one of them or letting one side take too much foothold on the final map), the one who survived will violently finish off the defeated one and then take out the heroes (and the rest of the universe) for good (Galeem using his light attack on the heroes once again, this time making sure not to miss anybody, Dharkon drowning the universe in darkness, killing everyone in the process).

* In ''VideoGame/ResidentEvilOutbreak'', if you don't get the antidote for the zombie virus, every character's ending ends with them dying. The best you can hope for is a glorious death, taking out loads of zombies as you go -- and that sort of thing only occurs if you're playing the final level with a combination of characters that can't be set up anywhere but online. And since Capcom took their servers down as far as this game is concerned...
** Taking out a bunch of zombies becomes pretty pointless too, when you remember that they would have just been destroyed when Raccoon City is nuked anyway.
** Resident Evil 2&3 is this, as well as DownerEnding. No matter what you do, Raccoon City is doomed. You cannot save it.

** The story of ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsII'' becomes this for the King Vendrick. He was once a chosen Undead who fought and defeated the four great souls of his time and obtained the eternal flame and created a mighty kingdom. He soon learned of the curse of the undead and tries to prevent it without sacrificing himself. While doing this, he soon meets a woman from a distant land who tells him of a threat by giants across the sea. Vendrick invades the giants land; gives them a sound defeat and steals a powerful item that lets him create life out of stone and mud. he marries the MysteriousWoman, making her his queen and builds a castle in her honor. Meanwhile he takes the item and creates all kinds of wonders, trying to prevent the curse of the undead. Even creating a clone of the ancient dragon, and a human firekeeper based off the DNA of the ancient dragon. However, none of this works. Vendrick soon finds out that the woman he married was EvilAllAlong and spends his last efforts trying to prevent her from obtaining the eternal flame, and at the same time gets invaded by vengeful Giants that ultimately sack many parts of his kingdom. Vendrick ends up locking himself away with his most trusted knights and eventually goes hollow.

* ''VideoGame/{{Outlast}}''. Despite [[TheDeterminator Miles Upshur's]] best efforts to [[EvilInc prove the Murkoff Corporation was hiding some horrible things from the public]] and despite not giving up even after [[FinGore getting two of his fingers amputated]] (and possibly infected, due to the 'equipment' being in a bidet), being hunted and attacked by many horrid monsters, losing his camera at some point and going to great lengths to get it back, [[TraumaCongaLine AND doing everything in his power to finish Billy/The Wallrider despite getting tossed around like a ragdoll and wounded...]]just when it seemed like he was going to get out, he gets shot to death by the special forces and dies. [[SubvertedTrope Arguably subverted when we consider he has turned into the new Walrider,]] but even so, after all his hard work and effort, his camera is either lost and/or broken, and all that he filmed will probably never see the light of day.]]

* ''VideoGame/ElementalGearbolt'':
The game opens with a shot of a ruined city, so [[ForegoneConclusion you already know what happens at the end]] [[LateToTheTragedy due to the entire game being a flashback]].
Once the game catches up to the present, the main characters are all presumed dead along with the rest of the kingdom where that game is set, and Tagami, having planned the whole incident, is unable to leave World 4 in the aftermath. Needless to say, this game is not for the faint of heart.

* ''VideoGame/ElementalGearbolt'': [[TheHeroDies Bel Cain himself is dead]], along with the rest of his kingdom, and Tagami, having planned the whole incident, is unable to leave World 4 in the aftermath. To top it all off, [[ForegoneConclusion you already know what happens at the end]] [[LateToTheTragedy due to the entire game being a flashback]]. Needless to say, this game is not for the faint of heart.

* ''VideoGame/Persona3'''s BadEnding. 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 Personas (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 the flash game ''VideoGame/TheClassroom'', the protagonist must cheat his way through 10 tests set across the last 10 days of school. On day 4, things get dark, with one of the other students being DrivenToSuicide. [[KickTheDog You must ruthlessly]], and [[NintendoHard with near perfect timing,]] [[LackOfEmpathy exploit this opportunity to cheat]] in order to pass the level. The next few levels then have you exploiting several other events, from the relatively mundane like a fight, another cheater getting busted, and [[FollowTheLeader all the other students following your lead to cheat]] to a grenade attack on the teacher, which wipes out most of the class including [[PlayerPunch your geek [[MauveShirt friend]] and [[ContrivedCoincidence stuns him for]] ''just'' long enough for [[TheSociopath you]] to successfully cheat.]] Come day 10, only you and one other student bother to show up, with a third student showing up late... [[TwistEnding only to pull a gun and shoot the teacher. You manage to successfully escape the classroom as he nails the other student with a MurderSuicide... only for your character himself to be DrivenToSuicide, stand out in the middle of the street, [[HappilyFailedSuicide have a narrow miss and hint at no longer being so keen to go through with it...]] [[SubvertedTrope and get hit by a second car anyway.]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Outlast}}''. Despite [[TheDeterminator Miles Upshur's]] best efforts to [[EvilInc prove the Murkoff Corporation was hiding some horrible things from the public]] and despite not giving up even after [[FinGore getting two of his fingers amputated (and possibly infected, due to the 'equipment' being in a bidet), being hunted and attacked by many horrid monsters, losing his camera at some point and going to great lengths to get it back, [[TraumaCongaLine AND doing everything in his power to finish Billy/The Wallrider despite getting tossed around like a ragdoll and wounded...]]just when it seemed like he was going to get out, he gets shot to death by the special forces and dies. [[SubvertedTrope Arguably subverted when we consider he has turned into the new Walrider,]] but even so, after all his hard work and effort, his camera is either lost and/or broken, and all that he filmed will probably never see the light of day.]]

* In ''VideoGame/TheDarkness II'', Jackie finally breaks through all of the lies and deceit of the Darkness to find Jenny's trapped soul in Hell. He manages to free Jenny, defying the Darkness's warnings, getting a moment with the woman he loves. After the credits, though, things go downhill. 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 Hell, 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 and destroying everything he has left.]]

* ''VideoGame/EternalDarkness'', being a CosmicHorrorStory, naturally has most characters' chapters end this way. Special mention goes to Anthony and Paul Luther's chapters. Anthony reads a cursed scroll intended for Charlemagne, and rushes to warn him of the attempt on his life. Not only does he get to Charlemagne ''just'' in time to see him die, [[AndIMustScream but the cursed scroll is slowly turning him into a mindless zombie, and it takes ''hundreds of years'' before he finally gets a MercyKill. (Incidentally, by Paul)]] Paul Luther is a Franciscan monk who had the bad luck of working at a cathedral taken over by an evil cult, and he ends up falsely accused of a HeKnowsTooMuch murder. He manages to find the evidence to clear his name and implicate the ObviouslyEvil head of the cult (who is actually the game's DragonInChief in disguise), but he's forced to indirectly sacrifice the one person who trusted him, the leader plans to have him killed anyway and as he pursues him to "put and end to the heresy forever", he is instantly (and brutally) killed by the Black Guardian, making everything he went through essentially pointless.

* The plot of ''VideoGame/{{Diablo}}'' revolves around a protagonist who seeks to stop the titular demon from destroying the town of Tristram, setting himself free from the cathedral, and leading his demonic hordes to destroy the world. In the end, he kills the demon (actually, his human host) and plunges [[SealedEvilInACan the stone containing his soul into himself]], with hopes that he will be able to contain the demon's power. All in all, a reasonable ending. Now, cut to the second game. It is revealed that [[UnwittingPawn he couldn't resist it]]. He became Diablo, destroyed Tristram, set himself free, and is now leading his demonic hordes to destroy the world. Well, crap. It was [[RetCon actually revealed that by the time you face Diablo in the first ''Diablo'' game, you're already under his control. The entire point of [[EvilPlan Diablo's plotting in the first game]] was for him to find a stronger host body. He reckoned, correctly, that any being strong enough to fight his/her way down to him, and then "slay" him was exactly what he needed.]] The manual to ''Diablo II: Lord of Destruction'' even points out how every time people thought it was over, the brothers just kept reemerging.

* ''VideoGame/{{Outlast}}''. Despite [[TheDeterminator Miles Upshur's best efforts to [[EvilInc prove the Murkoff Corporation was hiding some horrible things from the public]] and despite not giving up even after [[FinGore getting two of his fingers amputated (and possibly infected, due to the 'equipment' being in a bidet)]], being hunted and attacked by many horrid monsters, losing his camera at some point and going to great lengths to get it back, [[TraumaCongaLine AND doing everything in his power to finish Billy/The Wallrider despite getting tossed around like a ragdoll and wounded...]]just when it seemed like he was going to get out, he gets shot to death by the special forces and dies. [[SubvertedTrope Arguably subverted when we consider he has turned into the new Walrider,]] but even so, after all his hard work and effort, his camera is either lost and/or broken, and all that he filmed will probably never see the light of day.]]
** {{Subverted|Trope}} with the release of the ''Whistleblower'' [=DLC=]. The player now controls Waylon Park, the man who originally sent the warning e-Mail to Miles Upshur that made him go to the asylum. Waylon's events begin several hours before Miles arrives at the asylum, but ultimately end up happening simultaneously. Waylon runs away from the insane habitants of the asylum, was labelled a traitor by the company that hired him, got beaten up and tortured, [[GroinAttack and almost got his nether-regions mutilated, but ultimately manages to get outside of the asylum and heads into Miles Upshur's car. Miles Upshur, now the new host of the Walrider, begins to stumble towards Waylon and the Walrider practically pushed the car through the gate blocking Waylon's road to freedom. Waylon manages to leave the asylum in a rather decently state and has his own, unbroken camera with a lot of incriminating evidence against the company. His story ends with him uploading the evidence to the internet, ready to destroy Murkoff and putting himself and his loved ones in danger of being killed.]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Tenchu}} 4''. Gohda castle burns, Kiku and Sekiya are dead and [[BigBad Onikage has (possibly) infected Ayame]]

** Batman gets a perfect moment in ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamKnight''. He spends a significant amount of time and resources trying to find a way to cure [[CloneByConversion the Joker infected, even [[LockedOutOfTheLoop deliberately keeping Robin in the dark about Barbara's kidnapping and eventual death to ensure he'll focus on finding the cure]]. Then it turns out that Henry Adams, who Batman hoped would be the key to finding said cure, was [[EvilAllAlong faking his immunity]] the whole time, killing the other infected and then himself when he sees Batman himself is infected. The Joker hallucination that haunts Batman throughout the game takes great delight in rubbing in Batman's face about how he forced Robin to work on a nonexistent cure rather than be an effective ally in the field.]]

** This ends up being the story for the first three games. If you got the S-Ending and then went on the beat the DLC in ''VideoGame/DeadRising3'', it's revealed that Carlito's sister, Isabela, who was portrayed sympathetically in first and third game was [[TheDogWasTheMasterMind the mastermind behind the outbreak, not her brother. He was TheDragon to her. She is able to [[KarmaHoudini cover up all loose ends]] in the third game. So the protagonists never got the person responsible for the zombie outbreak to being with, and as ''VideoGame/DeadRising4'' proves, the zombie threat is still a problem even over a decade into the future.]]

** 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'' [[GameplayAndStorySegregation copy of Meltzer's final audio diary]].]]

** And BioShockInfinite/BurialAtSea shoots the Shaggy Dog of the main game's ending. At least one Comstock and two other Elizabeths survived the ordeal, although the [[TomatoInTheMirror Comstock we play as killed the Elizabeth he was trying to steal and [[TheAtoner had his mind wiped by the Luteces and moved to]] [[VideoGame/BioShock1 Rapture]]. One Elizabeth, implied to be the Elizabeth from the main game (and the only one not shown blinking out of existence) hunts down the final Comstock, although she is much older, implying that she had done so for other Comstocks as well. In short, Booker's sacrifice at Wounded Knee wasn't the solution they'd hoped for, and Elizabeth had to finish the job without him. Still, considering hunting down the last Comstocks in just a few years was even possible for her, whereas previously there were supposed to be a nigh-infinite number of them, Booker's sacrifice did 99.9999% of the job, at least.]]

** In the sequel, this trope returns in spades. Private Allen 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 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 [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbk71z4ldFc this had [[YouCantThwartStageOne actually worked...]] ]]

* This happens twice in ''VideoGame/DragonQuestV''. While your character is a child traveling with your father Pankraz, you get the assignment to rescue the incredibly bratty Prince Harry. After going through the tunnel complex where he's held, you find and release him... but some minions of the BigBad get the drop on you! Luckily, Pankraz beats them both handily. The BigBad then takes you hostage and says that he'll kill you if Pankraz interferes - and revives his minions. Pankraz then gets beaten to death by the minions, and you and Prince Harry are forced into slavery. ''Ten years'' pass before the next phase of the game. Later on, you get married and have children - but the day after your wife gives birth, she is kidnapped! It turns out that the former castle chancellor is in league with the monsters. You eventually find him right before he dies from [[PayEvilUntoEvil monster-delivered injuries. Later on, you find your wife - when the BigBad turns both you and your wife into living statues. You are then stolen by tomb robbers and sold to a rich man - where you watch him having fun raising ''his'' child for the next ''eight years''. However, you are eventually found and restored by your children]].

** Then again, when the chips are down, actual good people got killed ''twice'' because of his whims, he assassinated the person he was supposed to trust ([[ItMakesSenseInContext for a good reason, but still!), and to top it off [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking guy's a backstabbing two-timer even after having some humble pie]], so yeah screw trusting [[PalsWithJesus Him]]!]]

* ''[[VideoGame/RaySeries RayCrisis]]'', [[DoomedByCanon being a prequel to RayForce]], ends with your attempts to destroy Con-Human being too late to stop it, since Con-Human infected the entire Earth since [[AIIsACrapshoot it went out of control, and the last shot of the ending is one pilot taking off to perform [[TitleDrop Operation RayForce]].]]

* The 2015 sci-fi/horror FPS ''VideoGame/{{Solarix}}'' starts off dark enough with you being stranded on a far away ruined base on an alien planet being all but decimated by a rampart infection, but goes full on STSD by the end. By the end of the game, not only do you fail to synthesise a cure, but [[BigBad EYE openly mocks you for thinking that there was ever any hope. Your other companion Betty is revealed to not only be nothing more than a [[EnemyWithin voice on your head]], but a woman you killed in a mental breakdown. Literally every other person, named or otherwise either dies from the infection or gets turned into a feral zombie. The only reason you survived for so long is because you were in stasis from the aforementioned incident and were the only other person your AI companion AMI could turn to for help (she even states in an audiolog that she greatly fears you). Your attempt to stop EYE fails miserably because not only does AMI senselessly sacrifice herself to try and take out EYE from within, EYE even tells you that there are thousands of copies of him below the surface of the planet, meaning that you were doomed from the start. At the end of the game, everyone is dead, the ship is destroyed and you neatly conclude the game by committing suicide by jumping off the ruined ship and into the endless void of space.]] But hey, [[EsotericHappyEnding at least you prevented the infections from getting to Earth right?]]

* In the flash game ''VideoGame/TheClassroom'', the protagonist must cheat his way through 10 tests set across the last 10 days of school. On day 4, things get dark, with one of the other students being DrivenToSuicide. [[KickTheDog You must ruthlessly, and [[NintendoHard with near perfect timing,]] [[LackOfEmpathy exploit this opportunity to cheat]] in order to pass the level.]] The next few levels then have you exploiting several other events, from the relatively mundane like a fight, another cheater getting busted, and [[FollowTheLeader all the other students following your lead to cheat]] to a grenade attack on the teacher, which wipes out most of the class including [[PlayerPunch your geek [[MauveShirt friend]] and [[ContrivedCoincidence stuns him for]] ''just'' long enough for [[TheSociopath you]] to successfully cheat.]] Come day 10, only you and one other student bother to show up, with a third student showing up late... [[TwistEnding only to pull a gun and shoot the teacher. You manage to successfully escape the classroom as he nails the other student with a MurderSuicide... only for your character himself to be DrivenToSuicide, stand out in the middle of the street, [[HappilyFailedSuicide have a narrow miss and hint at no longer being so keen to go through with it...]] [[SubvertedTrope and get hit by a second car anyway.]]]] GG.

* ''VideoGame/MiddleEarthShadowOfWar'' becomes this due to ForegoneConclusion and DoomedByCanon given its set before ''Franchise/TheLordOfTheRings'' trilogy. Talion and Celebrimbor are unable to defeat Sauron (partly because he is indestructible so long as his One Ring exists and nobody knows its currently in [[Literature/TheHobbit Bilbo Baggins' possession), he manages to conquer Minas Ithil and turn it into Minas Morgul. By the end of the game, Celebrimbor (who has become corrupted himself and plans to rule Middle-Earth as the Bright Lord) abandons Talion and goes on to fight Sauron himself only to be defeated. After the FinalBoss, Talion becomes a renegade Ringwraith and decides to hold his position in Mordor in hopes of containing the Dark Lord's forces, and he does so for many decades until he too gets corrupted and becomes another minion of Sauron, rendering his struggle also pointless. The only silver-linings to this trope that Sauron is destined to be destroyed at the end of ''Return of the King'' and Talion will be released from his curse after his death]].

* The twentieth and final ending of ''VideoGame/TheBindingOfIsaac'' introduced in the ''Afterbirth+'' DLC confirms that the entire game was a DyingDream and none of it really happened. [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome Isaac's mother didn't really try and murder him because God told her to (and may not have actually been abusive), a falling bible didn't save him from her wrath, he didn't escape through a secret cellar, he didn't fight legions of horrible monstrosities, and he didn't defeat Satan. What really happened is that Isaac blamed himself for the failure of his parents' marriage and gradually going insane from self-loathing, came to believe he was the devil and committed suicide by locking himself in a chest. The whole game is just hallucinations resulting from oxygen-deprivation, with the TrueFinalBoss Delirium representing the Isaac's final delusions before suffocating to death.]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Inscryption}}'' ends with Grimora making a final attempt to keep the OLD_DATA from spreading by deleting all of the game files - including herself; her fellow Scrybes; and the souls of the dead that she's been preserving. Once the deletion is complete, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero the player is left face-to-face with the unharmed OLD_DATA with nothing left to prevent them from opening it]]. The attempt to kill P03 to keep the game from being uploaded appears to have also failed [[ForegoneConclusion considering that in]] [[RealLife real life it is now widely available for purchase online.]]]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Inscryption}}'' ends with Grimora making a final attempt to keep the OLD_DATA from spreading by deleting all of the game files - including herself; her fellow Scrybes; and the souls of the dead that she's been preserving. Once the deletion is complete, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero the player is left face-to-face with the unharmed OLD_DATA with nothing left to prevent them from opening it. The attempt to kill P03 to keep the game from being uploaded appears to have also failed [[ForegoneConclusion considering that in]] [[RealLife real life it is now widely available for purchase online.]]]]

* ''VideoGame/Persona3'''s BadEnding. 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 Personas (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...]]

** Even the path to the true ending seems to include this, with you getting shot by Akechi ''anyway'', even after you've cleared things up with Sae and chosen not to rat out the rest of your team. However, it's a subversion: [[ChekhovsGun a few critical clues allow you to piece together that there's more to Akechi than he lets on, enabling you to anticipate his plan to murder you. It turns out that by manipulating Akechi's phone and carefully timing certain events, you've tricked him ''and'' Sae into unwittingly going into the Metaverse, and substituted yourself with a body double while you make your escape. While Sae is convinced to [[HeelFaceTurn join your side]] shortly afterward, Akechi himself doesn't realize he's been had until much later - and by the time he does, [[AlasPoorVillain it's too late.]]]]

* In ''VideoGame/TheDarkness II'', Jackie finally breaks through all of the lies and deceit of the Darkness to find [[spoiler:Jenny's trapped soul in Hell. He manages to free Jenny, defying the Darkness's warnings, getting a moment with the woman he loves]]. After the credits, though, things go downhill. [[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 Hell, 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 and destroying everything he has left.]]
* Both ''VideoGame/Left4Dead'' games can be considered this, depending on how you choose to interpret them.

** [[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 quarantine 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.]]

* ''VideoGame/EternalDarkness'', being a CosmicHorrorStory, naturally has most characters' chapters end this way. Special mention goes to Anthony and Paul Luther's chapters. Anthony reads a cursed scroll intended for Charlemagne, and rushes to warn him of the attempt on his life. [[spoiler: Not only does he get to Charlemagne ''just'' in time to see him die, [[AndIMustScream but the cursed scroll is slowly turning him into a mindless zombie]], and it takes ''hundreds of years'' before he finally gets a MercyKill. (Incidentally, by Paul)]] Paul Luther is a Franciscan monk who had the bad luck of working at a cathedral taken over by an evil cult, and he ends up falsely accused of a HeKnowsTooMuch murder. He manages to find the evidence to clear his name and implicate the ObviouslyEvil head of the cult (who is actually the game's DragonInChief in disguise), but [[spoiler: he's forced to indirectly sacrifice the one person who trusted him, the leader plans to have him killed anyway and as he pursues him to "put and end to the heresy forever", he is instantly (and brutally) killed by the Black Guardian, making everything he went through essentially pointless.]]
* The TowerDefense game ''VideoGame/ImmortalDefense'' Shoots the Shaggy Dog with an elephant gun. At the end of the fifth campaign, after nearly a hundred missions of defending your beleaguered home world against increasingly impossible odds, you finally learn that [[spoiler:the enemy actually wiped out all life on your planet at the end of the second campaign, your character has gone insane, all the "transmissions" you've been receiving from the planet were in fact hallucinations, and you've been defending a lifeless ball of rock]]. You can still play on in the sixth campaign, though - [[spoiler:as an insane spirit in Pathspace gunning down anything which approaches your former planet, finishing only "At The End Of Everything" (that's the actual title of the last mission)]]
** The game's creator has said that [[spoiler:some or all of the last campaign is a hallucination, so the enemy isn't really wasting ships or lives at that point (it also explains how so many of the unique boss enemies reappear)]].
* ''VideoGame/FarCry5'' [[spoiler: sees the cult leader Joseph Seed triumph over you in almost every way. If you ultimately choose to run and leave him to his plans then you probably succumb to brainwashing and kill your own allies. If you fight him to the bitter end then nuclear war breaks out and your allies die, while you wind up stuck in a bunker handcuffed and at his mercy. The best possible resolution is simply to not play the game at all, refusing to arrest Joseph in the first place and letting him carry on with business.]]
** Thankfully, this is all resolved in the [[VideoGame/FarCryNewDawn sequel]], where [[spoiler:Joseph either ends up dead or having to deal with the guilt of what he’s done. It's also hinted in ''VideoGame/FarCry6'' that no nuclear war ever happened and that Joseph was actually arrested correctly, or that if the nukes ''were'' fired, ''only'' Montana was hit and the rest of the world is perfectly fine.]]
* In ''VideoGame/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 nauseatingly high in the sky was because he built the tower that high.]]
* ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII2'': [[HappyEndingOverride Timey-wimey stuff cancels out the seemingly happy ending]] from ''VideoGame/FinalFantasyXIII''. 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 dies after beating the bad guy, the world is consumed by Valhalla, Lightning is crystallized, and the bad guy [[UnexplainedRecovery gets better]].]] The next game pretty much confirms that [[spoiler:''XIII-2'' ended with TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt, it's just taken some time to actually get to the actual ending, but now Lightning's job is to save people in preparation for the destruction of the current world and the creation of a new one]].
** Bonus points if you get OneHundredPercentCompletion, which doesn't change the ending but DOES ''laugh directly in your face'': [[spoiler:You try so hard that Caius realizes you exist. He then insults you for spending hundreds of hours trying to rewrite an ending that was already (A)canon, and (B)supported by beings with higher stats in EVERYTHING than the player and the player character multiplied]].

* In ''VideoGame/SilentHill1'', 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 ''VideoGame/SilentHill2'', 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 ''VideoGame/SilentHill3'', 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 ''VideoGame/SilentHill4'', 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.]]
** In ''VideoGame/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]].
** And finally, in ''VideoGame/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.
* The story of ''[[VideoGame/DragonAgeOrigins Dragon Age]]'' becomes this if you play The Darkspawn Chronicles DLC (A what-if situation if where your character dies at the beginning and Alistair is forced to be the leader) Even if you play as a Darkspawn, the codex and ending tell how [[spoiler: Alistair manages to overcome his leadership issues and awkward shyness and gathers the party and army without the support of the Warden, presumably kills Loghain and even start a relationship with Leliana...only for them all to be slaughtered in the final battle, making it all pointless.]]
* Fenris can suffer this in ''VideoGame/DragonAgeII''. He escaped from slavery, having been marked with lyrium tattoos that cause him great pain and resulted in his amnesia. During the years you have him in your company, he slowly grows from his bindings as a former slave, potentially with Hawke even teaching him how to read. [[spoiler:And then Hawke can ''sell Fenris back to his old master'', an act that leaves Fenris [[DespairEventHorizon so utterly gutted]] that he leaves with Danarius without even resisting.]]
** In ''VideoGame/DragonAgeInquisition'', if you [[spoiler:sent Isabela to the Qunari]], Varric reveals that the Arishok's story ended like this. [[spoiler:Somewhere along the way, he winds up losing Isabela and the Tome of Koslun once again and returns home to find the Qunari equivalent of a court martial awaiting him, who strip him of his rank.]]

* The plot of ''VideoGame/{{Diablo}}'' revolves around a protagonist who seeks to stop the titular demon from destroying the town of Tristram, setting himself free from the cathedral, and leading his demonic hordes to destroy the world. In the end, he kills the demon (actually, his human host) and plunges [[SealedEvilInACan the stone containing his soul into himself]], with hopes that he will be able to contain the demon's power. All in all, a reasonable ending. Now, cut to the second game. It is revealed that [[UnwittingPawn he couldn't resist it]]. He became Diablo, destroyed Tristram, set himself free, and is now leading his demonic hordes to destroy the world. Well, crap. [[spoiler:It was [[RetCon actually revealed]] that by the time you face Diablo in the first ''Diablo'' game, you're already under his control. The entire point of [[EvilPlan Diablo's plotting in the first game]] was for him to find a stronger host body. He reckoned, correctly, that any being strong enough to fight his/her way down to him, and then "slay" him was exactly what he needed.]] The manual to ''Diablo II: Lord of Destruction'' even points out how every time people thought it was over, the brothers just kept reemerging.
** Bonus points for the Warrior protagonist, according to supplementary material found in Diablo III: [[spoiler:he was trying to rescue his little brother, the cathedral drove him to the brink of madness, and discovering that Diablo's host was none other than his little brother was the final nail to the head]].
** The expansion of the sequel isn't much better. You manage to [[DeaderThanDead smash Mephisto and Diablo's soulstones]]! Except that Baal is still left unchecked, and [[spoiler:he's figured out the location of the source of the soulstones, the Worldstone. Oh, and he manages to convince one of the [=NPCs=] to give him a PlotCoupon, meaning free access to the Worldstone for him]]. By the time you catch up to and kill Baal, Tyrael comes down and notifies you that [[spoiler:Baal's corruption of the Worldstone means that the only way to prevent the entire Realm from becoming an outpost of Hell is to destroy the Worldstone. Not even Tyrael himself knows what will happen afterwards]]. All you can do is enter the portal he opens for you.

* ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid2SonsOfLiberty'' features a subplot version of this while [[EscortMission taking Emma to the Shell A core to upload the virus to make GW bug out]]. You easily spend at least an hour on the entire ordeal, including killing Vamp for the second time, trudging your way through tedious underwater segments, sneaking Emma past several patrolling guards, and then doing a 5-minute long SnipingMission to ensure Emma makes it to the end. If she dies through any of this, Game Over. If she makes it over to Shell A, [[spoiler:Vamp jumps out of the water and grabs her. He can also kill her for a Game Over, but if you kill him... he ends up having stabbed her anyway, and there is nothing Raiden or Snake can do to save her. And on top of that? ''THE VIRUS DOESN'T EVEN FULLY UPLOAD.'']] The only tiny consolation to that failure isn't even found in this game, but [[VideoGame/MetalGearSolid4GunsOfThePatriots two games later.]] [[spoiler: Emma's virus corrupts the Patriot AIs controlling the entire world, slowly killing them...but it also throws them into [[NiceJobBreakingItHero a massive, bloody world war]] that only ends when they finally die.]]

** During the fight with The Guy to become The Guy, it is revealed that, [[spoiler: The Guy is your character's father. He killed his own father to become The Guy, and you are going to kill him to become The Guy, and in the future your son is going to kill you and become The Guy.]] Geez...talk about pointless.
* One possible ending in ''VideoGame/ShadowOfDestiny'' has the main character [[spoiler: escape death and, in the process, [[AnAesop realise how precious life is]]. It's all very heartwarming... and then he lies down to look at the sky and is promptly run over by a car. End of game.]]

* ''VideoGame/PeasantsQuest'' (a video game spin-off from WebAnimation/HomestarRunner and parody of old Creator/{{Sierra}} games) -- The goal is to gather up everything needed to be allowed to go fight the dragon, Trogdor, and then get past the traps guarding the gate to his lair. If you fail, of course, you die. If you succeed... [[spoiler: Trogdor tells you how impressed he is that you got this far, and then burnininates you because, of course, silly peasant, you can't defeat a DRAGON! Fortunately, you get a statue in your honor, so it's not ''completely'' pointless...]]

* ''VideoGame/Persona3'''s BadEnding. [[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 Personas (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...]]
* ''VideoGame/Persona4'''s {{Bad Ending}}s. Towards the end of the year, the team corners [[spoiler:Namatame, who has kidnapped and thrown every one of the rescued playable characters into the TV as well as taking [[EveryonesBabySister Nanako]] into the TV world, as a misguided attempt in saving them from murder.]] However, [[spoiler:the fog from the TV world causes Nanako to fall ill and lapse into a coma, and starts to seep into the real world.]] At some point, [[spoiler:Nanako dies]], and the player has the choice to [[spoiler:throw [[UnwittingPawn Namatame]] into the TV in retribution, or choose to spare him]] and get to the bottom of what's really going on. If you take the first choice, [[spoiler:Nanako stays dead]], while if you fail to find the truth, [[spoiler:Nanako is revived--but either way, she and everyone else will eventually die, either being killed by Shadows or becoming Shadows]]. And then there's the ending where [[spoiler:you figure out who the killer is and destroy the evidence that incriminates them, letting them free and leaving you to be blackmailed by them anytime they feel like it-- destroying evidence is a crime after all.]]

** The variations of the bad ending where [[spoiler:you fail to get through to Sae during your interrogation and end up getting shot in the head by Akechi.]] The final variation is the most in-line with this trope, [[spoiler:as you give the identities of all your teammates and confidants to Sae, and Akechi promptly uses that information to murder them all after he's killed you.]] Either way, you end up being a stepping stone in [[spoiler:Akechi's]] drawn out revenge against [[spoiler:Shido]], not even particularly relevant to it either.
** Even the path to the true ending seems to include this, [[spoiler: with you getting shot by Akechi ''anyway'', even after you've cleared things up with Sae and chosen not to rat out the rest of your team. However, it's a subversion: [[ChekhovsGun a few critical clues]] allow you to piece together that there's more to Akechi than he lets on, enabling you to anticipate his plan to murder you. It turns out that by manipulating Akechi's phone and carefully timing certain events, you've tricked him ''and'' Sae into unwittingly going into the Metaverse, and substituted yourself with a body double while you make your escape. While Sae is convinced to [[HeelFaceTurn join your side]] shortly afterward, Akechi himself doesn't realize he's been had until much later - and by the time he does, [[AlasPoorVillain it's too late.]]]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Resistance}} 2''. [[spoiler:Your first act in the game is to watch the BigBad 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.]]
* The original ''VideoGame/AlienVsPredator'' game had a particularly scary campaign for the squishy human Marine. Having fought your way through the infested colony and escaped to the unsurprisingly infested space station above the planet, having beaten the inevitable alien queen, [[spoiler: you just get abandoned. You've probably seen too much. Yay.]]

* In ''VideoGame/{{Infidel}}'', the PlayerCharacter solves an ancient pyramid's brutal riddles, defuses its {{Death Trap}}s, and opens the treasure sarcophagus in the Burial Chamber... [[spoiler:only for the room to collapse, burying him alive.]] This is arguably [[JustifiedTrope justified]], as the PlayerCharacter is a greedy, lying fool, but is that really a consolation after solving ''so many Expert-level puzzles?''
* In Adam Cadre's ''VideoGame/{{Varicella}}'', PlayerCharacter [[NamesToRunAwayFromReallyFast Primo Varicella's]] goal is to become Regent to the royal prince. Most players will need many, many [[NintendoHard playthroughs against a frustratingly tight]] [[TimedMission time limit]] to eliminate Varicella's [[AssholeVictim homicidal rivals.]] Your reward for pulling this feat off is [[spoiler: victory! Except the prince grows up to be more AxCrazy than all of the rivals put together, and sentences Varicella to torture and death.]] There are other endings, all grim, save for an EasterEgg. Given the [[CrapsackWorld dreary setting]], in which everybody's some combination of "evil," "crazy," and "victim," the shaggy dog's death might have been inevitable.
** Even the happy EasterEgg ending is a combination of [[spoiler:it's AllJustADream with a TomatoSurprise. Typing 'wake up' at any point reveals that the whole game was a college student's dream, an AlternateUniverse inspired by falling asleep while reading a history textbook.]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Outlast}}''.[[spoiler: Despite [[TheDeterminator Miles Upshur's best efforts to]] [[EvilInc prove the Murkoff Corporation was hiding some horrible things from the public]] and despite not giving up even after [[FinGore getting two of his fingers amputated (and possibly infected, due to the 'equipment' being in a bidet)]], being hunted and attacked by many horrid monsters, losing his camera at some point and going to great lengths to get it back, [[TraumaCongaLine AND doing everything in his power to finish Billy/The Wallrider despite getting tossed around like a ragdoll and wounded...]]just when it seemed like he was going to get out, he gets shot to death by the special forces and dies. [[SubvertedTrope Arguably subverted when we consider he has turned into the new Walrider,]] but even so, after all his hard work and effort, his camera is either lost and/or broken, and all that he filmed will probably never see the light of day.]]
** {{Subverted|Trope}} with the release of the ''Whistleblower'' [=DLC=]. [[spoiler: The player now controls Waylon Park, the man who originally sent the warning e-Mail to Miles Upshur that made him go to the asylum. Waylon's events begin several hours before Miles arrives at the asylum, but ultimately end up happening simultaneously. Waylon runs away from the insane habitants of the asylum, was labelled a traitor by the company that hired him, got beaten up and tortured, [[GroinAttack and almost got his nether-regions mutilated]], but ultimately manages to get outside of the asylum and heads into Miles Upshur's car. Miles Upshur, now the new host of the Walrider, begins to stumble towards Waylon and the Walrider practically pushed the car through the gate blocking Waylon's road to freedom. Waylon manages to leave the asylum in a rather decently state and has his own, unbroken camera with a lot of incriminating evidence against the company. His story ends with him uploading the evidence to the internet, ready to destroy Murkoff and putting himself and his loved ones in danger of being killed.]]
* ''VideoGame/{{Jinxter}}''. The game begins when you are about to be run over by a bus, when you are suddenly teleported away to become one of the guardians of a mysterious fantastic world. If you save the world, [[spoiler: they teleport you right back and you are immediately hit by the bus.]] ''Computer Gaming World'' labeled this one of the top fifteen worst game endings of all time.
* ''VideoGame/{{Tenchu}} 4''. [[spoiler: Gohda castle burns, Kiku and Sekiya are dead and [[BigBad Onikage]] has (possibly) infected Ayame]]

* In part two of Chapter 9 in ''VideoGame/PhantasyStarUniverse: Ambition of the Illuminus'', The GUARDIANS are looking for a young Beast boy infected with the SEED-virus to give him the vaccine before [[ShootTheDog the AMF CASTs kill him]]. However [[spoiler: once found he ends up turning into a SEED form, forcing him to be [[ShootTheDog killed anyway.]]]]
* In the "Sisters" mode of ''VideoGame/CastlevaniaPortraitOfRuin''. Since it's a prequel to the storyline of the main game, the ending doesn't surprise anyone who's unlocked it, but it's still a kick in the teeth. [[spoiler: You don't even get to fight Brauner or Dracula. As soon as you walk into Brauner's room, he takes CutscenePowerToTheMax and vampirizes the protagonists in front of their dying father. You have no chance to avoid this in any fashion.]] Fortunately things get better in the main story.

* ''VideoGame/ChronoCross'' retroactively does this to ''VideoGame/ChronoTrigger'', by revealing that [[spoiler: the kingdom of Guardia was destroyed between the events of the two games, with most of the cast living in 1000 AD implied to be dead, 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.]]
** Both ports of ''Trigger'' released since ''Cross'' also added extra cutscenes to further emphasize this fact: [[spoiler: The Fall of Guardia did not exist in the SNES version, so the game never ended with "Unexplainable army kills everyone in Guardia including our heroes." The Dream Devourer fight in the DS version was also new and pretty much exists for you to fight, win, and then be told you ''can't'' win and get sent back to the past...thus Chrono and his friends cannot stop the horrible events in the future from happening let alone their own horrible demises.]]
** Certainly not the case. [[spoiler: The day of Lavos is contained and the "apocalypse" gets delayed from the Day of Lavos in 1999 AD to the Time Crash in 2400 AD.]] Civilization gets an extra [[spoiler: 401]] years directly because of Triggers character's actions.
* Probably less shaggy then most, but the ''VideoGame/DreamChronicles'' series of puzzle games have this sort of ending. You spend the whole game looking for your kidnapped husband and child, and at the end [[spoiler: you're whisked away to an enchanted prison. After escaping from that, you get amnesia and forget you even have a husband and child.]] It's not the worst and these problems are quickly fixed in the next game, but it's annoying.
* ''VideoGame/LifeIsStrange'' becomes this in a nutshell. [[spoiler:Everything Max did to give Chloe a happier life and keep her safe is ultimately for naught. Either Max decides to travel back in time and let Chloe die from being shot back in Episode 1, making all of her actions pointless or allow the tornado to destroy Arcadia Bay and kill probably the entire population of the town, which will lead to Chloe surviving, but suffering from SurvivorsGuilt because she knows that her being alive caused the tornado to begin with.]]
* The game ''[[VideoGame/CyberLip Cyber-Lip]]'' is a Contra-style action side-scroller developed by Creator/{{SNK}}. The story appears to be fairly run-of-the-mill throughout: the President orders two VideoGame/BadDudes to find and destroy the titular Cyber-Lip, a military supercomputer that's gone mad and destroyed a good portion of the Earth with its deadly army of cyborgs. Throughout the game you receive briefings from the President after each level on where to progress next. Once you reach the final level and destroy the Cyber-Lip once and for all, you receive a message from the President congratulating you on a job well done. Seems obligatory enough, being an arcade shoot-'em-up and all... until the player is suddenly hit with a CruelTwistEnding when it is revealed that [[spoiler: the "President" was an evil alien leader bent on world domination the entire time. The aliens apparently were the ones that caused the Earth's military technology, including Cyber-Lip, to go haywire, probably via programmed viruses or some similar means, and you, being the naive pawns that you were, went right along and finished the aliens' job for them: destroy every last remaining bit of Earth's defenses, allowing the aliens ample room to take over your planet once and for all. "The Earth is ours," declares the faux-President, and with an evil grin and a pair of frightening, red glowing eyes to boot.]] The End! No sequel was ever made, nor announced, and it is highly unlikely that one will ever be made, so as far as anyone knows, this marks the end of the heroes' feckless, fruitless battle. Now, just imagine the reactions of the people who spent quarter after quarter to get to the end of this game and defeat the final boss, only for their efforts to be greeted with THAT. Of course, it is but one example of SNK's long streak of 80s and 90s arcade games that kill the player characters in the end and/or render the whole game pointless. That may be also considered a BolivianArmyEnding, intentionally left hanging.

* ''VideoGame/BatenKaitosOrigins'' has the story of Seph and his TrueCompanions. First they try to save the village of Rasalas from [[BigBad Wiseman]], only to arrive too late to do anything. Then they try to negotiate with Wiseman, who uses the opportunity to [[spoiler:[[MoralEventHorizon wipe out their hometown while they're away]]]] and simultaneously prove to them that they were completely powerless against him. This is something that Seph takes to heart after he discovers the results of the aforementioned act, and he decides to [[spoiler:make a DealWithTheDevil for the power needed to defeat Wiseman]]. Once they return, they find that [[spoiler:Wiseman has taken over the minds of everyone in the world's largest city]]. As they are fighting through the aforementioned group to get to Wiseman, the [[MagicalNativeAmerican Children of the Earth]] see the "senseless slaughter" they are inflicting, and decide to fix the problem by [[spoiler:killing them]]. Which they succeed in doing, thus allowing Wiseman to escape completely unharmed. And the best part? [[spoiler:The Children of the Earth had viewed Wiseman as a threat and were about to do the same to him before Seph and his true companions stepped in. Meaning that if they had simply done nothing, there would have been no need to lift the world up into the sky, Wiseman would have been killed, and they wouldn't have had to pay the price of their DealWithTheDevil - because there would have been no deal. Every single one of the problems faced in both this game and the original ''VideoGame/BatenKaitos'' could have been completely avoided]]. Sucks to be those guys, huh?
* In ''VideoGame/DreamfallTheLongestJourney'', none of the game's three protagonists manages to achieve their objectives. Although main character Zoë Castillo manages to prevent a societal and technological collapse in Stark, she fails at her mission to stop [=WATICorp=] from releasing the Dreamer and proves unable to rescue her ex-boyfriend--worse still, she is placed in a permanent coma. Over in Arcadia, April Ryan is unable to prevent the Azadi Empire from completing their EvilTowerOfOminousness, or even figure out what it's for, and is left for dead. The third protagonist, Azadi apostle Kian Alvane, is arrested for treason by the empire just after he decides to try to convince its leaders of the error of their ways. While the [[VideoGame/DreamfallChapters sequel]] managed to undo ''some'' of the doom and gloom (Zoë awakens from the coma to put an permanent end to the conspiracy, while Kian is freed and finds a new purpose in redeeming his nation), calling the original game's ending a downer would be a gross understatement.
* ''VideoGame/ObsCure II'': Mei spends the first half of the game trying to track down her twin sister Jun and save her. When she finally tracks her down, [[spoiler: the game lets you control Jun's escape attempts, only to have her brutally killed literally ''seconds'' after yanking that control away.]] [[FromBadToWorse Things go downhill from there]]. [[spoiler: One by one, the heroes suffer increasingly {{Cruel And Unusual Death}}s until only two of the original students remain, all their attempts to stop the infection from spreading fail, and the ending leaves the two survivors facing down a cloud of black spores implied to be surrounding an even more horrific monster than the FinalBoss.]]

* In ''VideoGame/{{Super Robot Wars Original Generation}}s'', we have a mechanical dog who eventually develops and feels like an actual dog. After spending through hardships that affirms that it has emotions and is like a real person, er, dog, it is captured and was about to turned back into a mindless machine again. Thankfully, the dog gained an iron will and it was able to escape that predicament and was on the verge of being rescued... only to be shot down dead. ''What's the point of having an iron will and all those hardships if in the end, it just dies like that?'' It seriously makes her whole development, and the buildup that leads to its iron will escape completely pointless. That dog's name? Lamia Loveless. [[spoiler:Thankfully, OG Gaiden dealt with the continuation, and ended up resuscitating that dead shaggy dog.]]

** [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed]] in ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamAsylum''. At two points in the game you have to save [[spoiler:Dr. Young, getting a NonStandardGameOver if you fail. After you save her the second time she dies ''about a minute later anyway'' falling for a trap left by the Joker. That being said, you DO end up stopping the Joker afterwards, so at least there's that.]]
** In ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity'', the Joker has a moment that almost perfectly fits this trope, but he's an antagonist instead of a protagonist. [[spoiler:Despite all his plans to save himself from dying of Titan poisoning, he comes extremely close to manipulating Batman to bring him the cure. In fact, Batman has the cure and Joker is in the very same room as him [[BackstabBackfire when Joker stabs Batman in the shoulder, making him drop the cure and dooming Joker, who would have lived if he could have seen that Batman would never intentionally let him die]].]]

** Batman gets a perfect moment in ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamKnight''. [[spoiler:He spends a significant amount of time and resources trying to find a way to cure [[CloneByConversion the Joker infected]], even [[LockedOutOfTheLoop deliberately keeping Robin in the dark about Barbara's kidnapping and eventual death to ensure he'll focus on finding the cure]]. Then it turns out that Henry Adams, who Batman hoped would be the key to finding said cure, was [[EvilAllAlong faking his immunity]] the whole time, killing the other infected and then himself when he sees Batman himself is infected. The Joker hallucination that haunts Batman throughout the game takes great delight in rubbing in Batman's face about how he forced Robin to work on a nonexistent cure rather than be an effective ally in the field.]]

** Come ''Street Fighter V'', made seventeen years after ''Alpha 3'', Charlie is back but things are still far from happy for him. Now going by the name Nash, he was [[CameBackWrong crudely]] brought BackFromTheDead by an unknown group, implied to be TheIlluminati (who are even ''worse'' than Shadaloo). He's LivingOnBorrowedTime due to his decaying body and has new dark powers that give him a much more brutal fighting style. He's abandoned all idealism and morals in pursuit of getting revenge on Bison and is willing to kill anyone that gets in his way, up to and including his old friends and allies. And to top it all off his HeroicSacrifice in ''Alpha 3'' was retconned away in place of the CavalryBetrayal he suffered in ''Alpha 2''. [[spoiler: However, the cinematic story mode has him go out on a high note. He eventually reconciles with his old friends, gets back some of his idealism and goes out in a meaningful HeroicSacrifice that weakens Bison enough for Ryu to finish him for good.]]

* ''VideoGame/DeadRising'' ends this way as well. The protagonist, 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.

** This ends up being the story for the first three games. If you got the S-Ending and then went on the beat the DLC in ''VideoGame/DeadRising3'', [[spoiler: it's revealed that Carlito's sister, Isabela, who was portrayed sympathetically in first and third game was [[TheDogWasTheMasterMind the mastermind behind the outbreak]], not her brother. He was TheDragon to her. She is able to [[KarmaHoudini cover up all loose ends]] in the third game. So the protagonists never got the person responsible for the zombie outbreak to being with, and as ''VideoGame/DeadRising4'' proves, the zombie threat is still a problem even over a decade into the future.]]

** But then ''VideoGame/DriverSanFrancisco'' came out, which carries on this plot line: [[spoiler:Tanner is in a coma and a great part of the game, if not all of it, takes place in his head while he tries to wake up.]]
* Pirated copies of ''VideoGame/EarthBound1994'' give us a meta-example. You play through the game, which ends up being almost exactly the same (more enemies, though) and, once you get to the final boss, [[spoiler: The game freezes. And then deletes all of your save files.]]
* ''VideoGame/ValkyrieProfileCovenantOfThePlume''. Admittedly it's the BadEnd, but still- the hero devotes his entire life to taking revenge on the Valkyrie for killing his father, making a DealWithTheDevil and crossing the MoralEventHorizon to do so. Ignore for a second the fact that the Valkyrie only [[MisBlamed escorts the souls of those already dead to Valhalla]], the Norse warrior's heaven. He finally achieves his goal, but then [[spoiler: Freya shows up and reveals that the Valkyrie will reincarnate eventually, rendering Wylfried's victory pointless and his revenge impossible. He then gets sent to hell per the terms of his contract, having accomplished nothing but bringing the kingdom he was trying to protect to ruin.]] To add insult to injury, the epilogue reveals that [[spoiler: the Valkyrie took a dive in the fight as an act of repentance, as she felt that Wylfried's FaceHeelTurn was her fault.]]

* ''VideoGame/KingdomHearts358DaysOver2''. Roxas's best friend, who has spent the entire game trying to figure out her purpose and later ''defy'' the purpose Organization XIII have engineered for her [[spoiler:ends up getting brainwashed/reprogrammed, doing their dirty work for them, including trying to kill Roxas. He is forced to kill her, and when he gets ready for a RoaringRampageOfRevenge, he gets beat down by TheRival from the first game, gets his memory wiped so that he doesn't even remember his friend, and the stage is set for ''VideoGame/KingdomHeartsII''... where he is absorbed by Sora in the prologue.]] At least you knew (most) of it was coming, if you played the games in [[AnachronicOrder the order they were released.]]

* ''VideoGame/BioShock'' had an AlternateRealityGame for [[VideoGame/BioShock2 the sequel]] called 'Something in the Sea' whose main character became well-liked enough to be placed in the game. Many a fan cheered when they saw Mark Meltzer's first audio diary in the game recording his heroic efforts to rescue his kidnapped daughter. [[spoiler: Not so much cheering at hearing his last...since you take it off his corpse...after YOU kill him personally...with his daughter a few feet away from his body. Because he had been turned into a Big Daddy by Sofia Lamb.]]
** [[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 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]]'' [[GameplayAndStorySegregation copy of Meltzer's final audio diary]].]]
* The ending for ''VideoGame/BioShockInfinite'' essentially undoes the entirity of the game. After [[spoiler:killing Comstock, defeating the Vox Populi, and destroying the siphon on Monument Island, Booker and Elizabeth travel through time and alternate realities to "kill Comstock in the crib". It's eventually revealed that Booker and Comstock are alternate-reality versions of the same person, and that to kill one is to kill the other. Booker accepts this and lets various versions of Elizabeth drown him at his baptism at Wounded Knee. The Elizabeths blink out of existence, signifying the undoing of the realities that made them and, essentially, the entire game. TheStinger implies that doing so only killed the Comstocks, not the Bookers, allowing Booker and Anna/Elizabeth to live out their proper lives. In other words, the closest thing the game has to a happy ending is to retroactively undo the whole game!]]
** And BioShockInfinite/BurialAtSea shoots the Shaggy Dog of the main game's ending. [[spoiler:At least one Comstock and two other Elizabeths survived the ordeal, although the [[TomatoInTheMirror Comstock we play as]] killed the Elizabeth he was trying to steal and [[TheAtoner had his mind wiped by the Luteces and moved to]] [[VideoGame/BioShock1 Rapture]]. One Elizabeth, implied to be the Elizabeth from the main game (and the only one not shown blinking out of existence) hunts down the final Comstock, although she is much older, implying that she had done so for other Comstocks as well. In short, Booker's sacrifice at Wounded Knee wasn't the solution they'd hoped for, and Elizabeth had to finish the job without him. Still, considering hunting down the last Comstocks in just a few years was even possible for her, whereas previously there were supposed to be a nigh-infinite number of them, Booker's sacrifice did 99.9999% of the job, at least.]]
** Endings aside, this happens a surprising amount in the game. Need to find a universe where Chen Lin is still a sane gunsmith with all of his tools? [[spoiler:They don't exist. Also, the Vox hates you now, so you need to deal with that.]] Need to find an airship to escape Columbia? [[spoiler:The first time you do, Elizabeth knocks you out and it's confiscated by the Vox Populi. The second time it's destroyed by Songbird almost immediately.]] Need to talk down the Siren so that she'll open the gate to Comstock House? [[spoiler:You'll find the three truths you need, but they end up being inconsequential, and the Siren knocks down the gate you needed to get through.]] Need to control Songbird so he doesn't kill you? [[spoiler:You do command him during the final battle with the Vox, but after destroying the siphon Booker loses the pipes and you teleport him to the ocean outside Rapture, killing him.]] And then, of course, the whole thing is undone anyway.
* ''VideoGame/DrawnToLife: The Next Chapter'', DS version. All that trouble you had to go through, and [[spoiler: the whole thing was AllJustADream?! And almost [[DreamApocalypse all of the characters you worked your ass of to save get destroyed anyway]]?!?!]] ''Cue AngerMontage''
** [[spoiler:Plus that means that the Creator isn't real, and you're NOT the Creator, which was the main gimmick of the series!!!]]
* The [[spoiler:American campaign]] in ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty: VideoGame/ModernWarfare'', despite being a PyrrhicVictory in the grand scheme, ended ''terribly'' for the perspective of the characters. [[spoiler:Everything that Sergeant Paul Jackson does, from taking part in the invasion of the Middle East, trying to capture Al-Asad (and failing), protecting a tank as it moves through a hostile area and rescuing a downed Cobra pilot from group of terrorists is all rendered moot as you evacuate the Middle East. A nuclear bomb goes off in the city, killing your commanding officer, your fellow teammates, the pilot you just saved, and, eventually, ''you''. Al-Asad runs away, and the actions of the characters are reduced to nothing more than another figure in the death toll. This is done to drive home the point that war is (if you consider the actions that you just took in the campaign) pointless. General Shepard comments on this in the sequel: "30,000 of my men died in the blink of an eye, and the world just fuckin' watched."]]
** 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 [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbk71z4ldFc this]] had [[YouCantThwartStageOne actually worked...]] ]]
* ''VideoGame/SuikodenTierkreis'' doesn't ''require'' the death of this particular Dog, but it certainly tries to bait the player into it. All but two {{Dialogue Tree}}s in the game end with you [[ButThouMust taking the same path you would anyway]], one repeats endlessly until you make the right choices . . . and one [[spoiler:lets you determine whether or not to CombinedEnergyAttack the BigBad, risking the lives of those who participate in the attack, with a "yes" answer being the default option, and a "no" answer being a declaration that there must be some other way to defeat him, with no indication you're doing anything more than denying what's necessary. Choose "no," and you'll later discover that he made the same choice against a similar foe, and every single one of the participants except him died. He was warped and twisted into becoming the villain he is now, and if you choose "yes," you'll [[HereWeGoAgain follow in his footsteps]], over the bodies of a hundred and seven of your allies (all of whom have previously been given names and personalities, and many of whom have had side quests centering on them!)]]

* This happens twice in ''VideoGame/DragonQuestV''. While your character is a child traveling with your father Pankraz, you get the assignment to rescue the incredibly bratty Prince Harry. After going through the tunnel complex where he's held, you find and release him...[[spoiler: but some minions of the BigBad get the drop on you! Luckily, Pankraz beats them both handily. The BigBad then takes you hostage and says that he'll kill you if Pankraz interferes - and revives his minions. Pankraz then gets beaten to death by the minions, and you and Prince Harry are forced into slavery. ''Ten years'' pass before the next phase of the game.]] Later on, you get married and have children - but the day after your wife gives birth, she is kidnapped! [[spoiler: It turns out that the former castle chancellor is in league with the monsters. You eventually find him right before he dies from [[PayEvilUntoEvil monster-delivered injuries]]. Later on, you find your wife - when the BigBad turns both you and your wife into living statues. You are then stolen by tomb robbers and sold to a rich man - where you watch him having fun raising ''his'' child for the next ''eight years''. However, you are eventually found and restored by your children]].

** These events cause the magical plague that nearly destroys humanity in ''VideoGame/NieR''. [[spoiler: That game ends with the title character destroying humanity's only hope of recovering from the disease.]] Also, even if the characters came to some agreement not shown in-game [[spoiler:which could save humanity, Yonah's Black Scrawl can't be cured, meaning she dies, and saving humanity would require all of the Replicant characters giving up their free will]].
*** According to [[WordOfGod interviews with Director Yoko Taro]] found in [[AllThereInTheManual Grimorie NieR]] [[spoiler: the Shades hiding as Humans in the Aerie were because some Gestalts were able to reunite with their Replicants without the aid of Weiss and Noir. They seem unstable (turning back into Shades when Nier mentions wanting to kill Shades), but it raises some hopes that Humanity might be able to somehwhat recover with the knowledge they have. [[LivingWeapon Then Emil nukes the place]].]]
** And in the sequel to the "A" ending of ''Drakengard'', ''Drakengard 2'', also does this in its Ending A. [[spoiler: The entire game is spent destroying the districts that essentially form the seals that bind Angelus, Caim's dragon from the first game. After destroying the dragon and launching the world into an apocalypse extremely similar to that of the first game (following Furiae's death), they realize that they have to make another goddess seal... so they place Eris as the goddess seal and the districts are remade. That basically means that the seals you've worked so hard throughout the game and killed a ton of people for the sake of destroying? They all have to be rebuilt to make Eris's burden more tolerable.]]
** And it gets worse. The official timeline reveals that [[spoiler:the previously mentioned ''Drakengard'' Ending E, is not another dimension, but the future of Ending C from ''Drakengard 2'', meaning the bittersweet ending they achieved still ends with humanity wiped out.]]
** And then there is ''VideoGame/Drakengard3'' where [[spoiler:in all but one ending, Zero fails to destroy the flower and ends up losing either her life, Mikhail or her sanity.]]
* The ending to ''VideoGame/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.]]
** Worse, it makes [[spoiler: ''everything'' Arthur did to protect John and Abigail from the outlaw life in ''VideoGame/RedDeadRedemption2'', even defying Dutch, his father figure in the process, ultimately pointless in the end.]]

* The Creator/AdultSwim flash game ''Corporate Climber'' goes somewhere between this, [[spoiler:KarmicDeath, and EternalRecurrence.]] Promoted from "peon" steadily on upwards, you're often given dubiously ethical tasks (for instance, as a CFO you're ordered to "Cook the books" by throwing them into a fire.) As a board member your only assignment is to "Live it up," but once you're promoted to president you [[spoiler:"Pay the piper," thrown out the window by all the people you've wronged. If you want, you can go to hell from here, but you can also return to Earth as a peon and start all over.]]
* ''VisualNovel/NineHoursNinePersonsNineDoors'':
** Ending 5, "Knife". [[spoiler:After finding door 9, Junpei and the others backtrack to find Clover. While searching, Junpei finds Lotus stabbed to death and is himself stabbed moments later. Though Junpei sees his killer, the player doesn't, leaving the player with no real understanding of the plot and no idea as to who the killer is.]]
** 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, until you reach the Sun Room. Akane lays dead, and you find the dead bodies of Seven and Lotus. 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.]]
* ''VideoGame/OneChance'': Possibly the most depressing game ever. The best ending you can hope for is only [[spoiler:your wife, coworkers, and most of the world]] dying. And you can't play again until you empty your cookies folder.
* ''VideoGame/MondoMedicals''. You wander through the corridors (of the eponymous facility?), solving your way past mind-boggling obstacles and generally being confused and creeped out, and at the end - instead of any answers at all - you get [[spoiler:a sudden bullet in the head]].
* In ''VideoGame/RadiantSilvergun'', our heroes are powerless to stop the Stone-Like from [[GaiasVengeance wiping out human kind]]. The Creator robot creates clones of Buster and Reanna, but dies before he can warn them of the future. Thus, humanity is doomed to [[GroundhogDayLoop repeat the cycle]], and will never learn the error of their ways...[[spoiler: unless one were to take ''VideoGame/{{Ikaruga}}'' into account, where the Stone-Like is eventually destroyed (though not without [[HeroicSacrifice cost]]).]]

* ''VideoGame/DeadNation'' at the end [[spoiler: everybody dies and there is no cure, so really why did you play it? Oh yes the scores and the fun.]]
* ''VideoGame/DeadIsland'' pulls this [[spoiler: twice in the final few minutes. First, the voice (a Marine Colonel) guiding you to find a cure for the disease gasses you, leaves you for dead, steals the cure, and calls in an order to bomb the island - making all the work you did getting survivors to shelters and gathering medical supplies for them completely irrelevant. Second, when the Colonel gets bitten by his zombified wife, he uses the only vial of the cure (which you spent a good chunk of the game buying time for the scientists to develop) on himself - which doesn't work and turns him into the final boss.]]
* The "Relinquish" BadEnd in ''VideoGame/VacantSky'', which requires completing the final dungeon without your other party members and minus a few skill upgrades you'd normally get right before entering, a task far harder than obtaining either of the "good" endings. Auria [[spoiler:kills the villain in a cutscene]], but not before [[spoiler:he uses his power to make her perceive that she dies immediately afterward, despite being immortal.]] Nothing is done to stop [[spoiler:Halo Locks from being restored and killing countless people]]; not only is this the only ending where that happens but it would in fact fail to happen had you lost the game anywhere except the final boss, as the villain's plan [[spoiler:hinged on getting Auria to the bottom of the final dungeon]]. But wait, there's more! This is also the only one of the three main endings in which [[spoiler:Vastale]] does not die and nothing at all is done to even slow down the Virad menace, and it's likely that [[spoiler:Vel never wakes from her coma]]. That's what you get for intentionally violating the story's {{Aesop}}.
* 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 anyone back to life'', 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... [[GodWasMyCopilot Except one]].]]
** [[spoiler:Then again, when the chips are down, actual good people got killed ''twice'' because of his whims, he assassinated the person he was supposed to trust ([[ItMakesSenseInContext for a good reason, but still!]]), and to top it off [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking guy's a backstabbing two-timer even after having some humble pie]], so yeah screw trusting [[PalsWithJesus Him]]!]]

* ''VideoGame/ConkersBadFurDay''. All the titular character wanted to do was go home. He ends up going through hell, and, at one point, his girlfriend is kidnapped. Then, when he finally finds her again, [[spoiler: she's brutally killed right in front of him.]] ''Then'', just to add insult to injury, [[spoiler: he was actually presented with a chance to bring her back to life. But, by the time he realized that it was even an option, it was already too late.]] Even after becoming the king and basically ruling over the entire land, it's easy to see why he's so bitter over the whole thing.
* ''VideoGame/MichiganReportFromHell'' has MultipleEndings, but all of them end [[spoiler:with the cameraman getting killed before he can reveal who's behind everything]]. The only thing your actions really determine is [[spoiler:his identity and his reaction to the hell you've been through]]. On top of this, if you've been [[VideogameCrueltyPotential nothing but cruel]] [[KarmaMeter the whole time]], in the end [[spoiler:he claims to be the one responsible for the whole mess, and transforms into a monster]]. Thanks, Creator/Suda51.
* ''[[VideoGame/RaySeries RayCrisis]]'', [[DoomedByCanon being a prequel to RayForce]], ends with [[spoiler: your attempts to destroy Con-Human being too late to stop it, since Con-Human infected the entire Earth since [[AIIsACrapshoot it went out of control]], and the last shot of the ending is one pilot taking off to perform [[TitleDrop Operation RayForce]].]]
** In ''[=RayStorm=]''[='=]s 13-Ship mode, you stop the Secilian rebellion by [[spoiler:plunging the entire colony into a gas giant]], just like in the other modes. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, TheStinger reveals that Earth got wiped out too.]]

* ''VideoGame/SpecOpsTheLine'' starts out with the protagonist and his squad looking for survivors in Dubai after it's savaged by massive sandstorms, and a military battalion led by his former commander, John Konrad, disappears. Unfortunately, Walker finds himself making things worse by [[WrongGenreSavvy acting like your typical modern military shooter protagonist]] a la ''VideoGame/CallOfDuty'' in a game that serves as a vicious {{Deconstruction}} of the genre. In the end [[spoiler: he's personally killed civilians with white phosphorous mortars (and possibly gunned down a few more,) single handedly massacred the battalion, doomed the survivors to death by dehydration by destroying their water supply, led his squadmates to their deaths, and then discovered that the former commander that he thought was responsible for everything was DeadAllAlong and that he was merely hallucinating him. He then dies in 2 of the 4 endings, with a third one dooming him to certain death anyway, and the final one leaving him alive but a broken shell of a human being.]]
* ''VideoGame/SonicErazor'' pulls this one off evilly. The game itself is a short PlatformHell [[GameMod ROM hack]], so what's the ending? Sonic runs around GreenHillZone like in [[VideoGame/SonicTheHedgehog1 the original game]]... [[spoiler:before he runs off a cliff and dies.]]

** Potentially also the fate of [[spoiler: Paarthurnax. After struggling for centuries against his own dark nature as a dragon, he could be killed by a Dragonborn simply because some members of the Blades [[HeelFaceDoorSlam cannot accept the existence]] of a benevolent dragon. Even one who has become TheAtoner for his part in the war]].

** A heavily implied example would be the first ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsI'' as there are two endings. [[spoiler: As it turns out, both Primordial Serpents, Kingseeker Frampt and Darkstalker Kaathe were witholding the full truth from the Chosen Undead: by [[FateWorseThanDeath rekindling the First Flame]], the chain of the undead coming back to life will not be stopped, and the Age of Fire will definitely come to an end. By leaving, the Age of Fire ends, and the Age of Dark (aka the Age of Man) begins, but from what can be seen from what happened to Oolacile, mankind may not even survive.]] As such, it becomes a wonder if the world will ever become better than it was before.
** The story of ''VideoGame/DarkSoulsII'' becomes this for the King Vendrick. He was once a chosen Undead who fought and defeated the four great souls of his time and obtained the eternal flame and created a mighty kingdom. He soon learned of the curse of the undead and tries to prevent it without sacrificing himself. While doing this, he soon meets a woman from a distant land who tells him of a threat by giants across the sea. Vendrick invades the giants land; gives them a sound defeat and steals a powerful item that [[spoiler: lets him create life out of stone and mud.]] he marries the MysteriousWoman, making her his queen and builds a castle in her honor. [[spoiler: Meanwhile he takes the item and creates all kinds of wonders, trying to prevent the curse of the undead. Even creating a clone of the ancient dragon, and a human firekeeper based off the DNA of the ancient dragon. However, none of this works. Vendrick soon finds out that the woman he married was EvilAllAlong and spends his last efforts trying to prevent her from obtaining the eternal flame, and at the same time gets invaded by vengeful Giants that ultimately sack many parts of his kingdom. Vendrick ends up locking himself away with his most trusted knights and eventually goes hollow.]]

* Mercedes' storyline in ''VideoGame/OdinSphere'' ultimately becomes this after Armageddon. Her book has her becoming queen of the fairies after the death of her mother and having to prove herself, overcoming a rebellion by her cousin and eventually leading the fairies to victory against Odin. [[spoiler: Then Armageddon happens and Onyx burns down Ringford Forest and drives the fairies to extinction, while Mercedes (after finding out that her love interest Ingway died before she could meet him again) dies in battle against him, bemoaning that she'd failed her people (though she at least gets to [[TakingYouWithMe take Onyx down with her]], and her Pyrrhic victory does ultimately ensure that ''somebody'' survives Armageddon.)]]
* A partial example with ''VideoGame/{{Alundra}}''. While the main conflict is against the GodOfEvil Melzas, you also spend most of the game trying to save the people of Inoa from horrible, lethal nightmares. [[spoiler: By the end of the game, none of them survive anyway, as even the ones you save are eventually killed when the Murgg burn down Inoa.]]

** In the [[VideoGame/HotlineMiami first game]], [[spoiler: attempting to complete the final chapter without discovering the hidden password to the computer will prompt the Biker to break into the cellar of a non-descript building, whereupon he confronts the two janitors who were indirectly responsible for almost all of the murders which took place in the game's story]]. They don't respond to the Biker's threats and interrogation, and they literally taunt him into killing them as well, leaving all of the story's questions unanswered. This is lampshaded by Richard at the beginning of the game.

** ''VideoGame/HotlineMiami2WrongNumber'' is all about the futility of vengeance and violence. None of the cast members achieve anything of significance, most of them are killed by one another, and [[spoiler:events taking place entirely off-screen result in the remaining characters being killed in a full-scale nuclear war.]] With the futility of violence being a core theme, it was already expected things would end [[DownerEnding poorly]], but just ''how'' incredibly wrong it all goes still packs a punch.
* In ''VideoGame/StarTrekOnline'', there's the Romulan character Taris (who was only seen in the ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration'' episode "Contagion"). After being (supposedly) tricked by Hakeev in using a device that ended up triggering the [[Film/StarTrek2009 Hobus supernova that destroyed Romulus and Remus]], she goes to great lengths in order to find the Iconians with the intent on getting them to go back in time and stop it from happening. In the mission "Uneasy Allies", [[spoiler:Sela confronts Taris and calls her a bigger fool than she thought for the idea, pushing her off a ledge and declaring as she falls that the Iconians would never do that and that, even if they could, time travel fries their minds.]]
* This trope is the biggest source of TooBleakStoppedCaring afflicting the ''VideoGame/BlazBlue'' series, as many of the things done by the protagonists are used as openings for the villains [[FromBadToWorse to make things worse]]; in particular, there is not a single damn thing Ragna the Bloodedge (the series' main protagonist, we should inform you) has ever accomplished that wasn't used to hurt him in turn. He attempts to defeat Nu in Kagutsuchi? She impales him anyway and drags into the cauldron. Noel stops him from falling in and ends the depressing timeloop that would have resulted, but Yuuki Terumi uses that to kickstart his plans to destroy the Master Unit. Ragna tries to fight Terumi? Terumi jams Ragna's Azure Grimoire and puts him at a disadvantage. Ragna beats the shit out of Terumi after Lambda's HeroicSacrifice? Terumi ''[[ThanatosGambit wanted to die]]'' so he could infiltrate and lobotomize Takamagahara, and Relius finishes him off so he can. Ragna fights Mu-12 and reverts her to her "incomplete" state as Noel? The window of opportunity Terumi needed to do the job. [[spoiler:Ragna fights Nu at Ibukido and holds his ground without the Azure Grimoire? Izanami uses Takamagahara to jam it and push the fight to a stalemated deathmatch. Ragna, Jin and Noel decom Take-Mikazuchi with Ragna later beating Nu with the Grimoire turned off? Izanami reanimates Nu, merges her with Ragna (like what Ragna was trying to avoid in Kagutsuchi), and he can only keep himself from outright killing his two colleagues, with Noel injured and Jin beaten to an inch of his life.]] And that is ''not'' including all the crap he goes through on the way, like getting bodied by Carl and Ada, being conned out of what little money he has by Tao and Platinum (the former has no idea the meaning of money, to her only credit), [[spoiler:getting pwned by Kagura with Celica in proximity, getting smacked down by Jin, and nearly losing control over his Azure Grimoire when facing Azrael.]]
* Leon's Side in the remake of ''VideoGame/TalesOfDestiny''. You get to play through the story as [[EnsembleDarkhorse Leon Magnus]], work through his trust issues, and finally get Marian's full approval, only for Hugo to still [[spoiler: manipulate him with ease and force him to steal the Eye of Atamoni ([[AbusiveParents and beat him into a coma]]), then have him betray the rest of the party. And he still dies for all the character growth he's been through.]] In fact, it's probably even ''more'' of a PlayerPunch than fighting Leon was in the first place, because now the game makes an actual effort to make you like the guy.

** A ''literal'' shaggy dog story in an optional storybook the protagonist can read, in which a grave misunderstanding causes a hunter to kill his loyal dog. This is a foreshadowing to [[spoiler: the True Ending,]] because [[spoiler:thanks to a truly insidious case of GrandTheftMe, [[TheBadGuyWins the player has actually been playing as the villain the entire time.]]]]
** Which makes the [[EasterEgg "wait" ending]] even worse in retrospect. [[spoiler: You're just waiting for the victim to pass out from her wounds, disease and poison without her being able to do anything to reach you]].
* The 2015 sci-fi/horror FPS ''VideoGame/{{Solarix}}'' starts off dark enough with you being stranded on a far away ruined base on an alien planet being all but decimated by a rampart infection, but goes full on STSD by the end. By the end of the game, [[spoiler: not only do you fail to synthesise a cure, but [[BigBad EYE]] openly mocks you for thinking that there was ever any hope. Your other companion Betty is revealed to not only be nothing more than a [[EnemyWithin voice on your head]], but a woman you killed in a mental breakdown. Literally every other person, named or otherwise either dies from the infection or gets turned into a feral zombie. The only reason you survived for so long is because you were in stasis from the aforementioned incident and were the only other person your AI companion AMI could turn to for help (she even states in an audiolog that she greatly fears you). Your attempt to stop EYE fails miserably because not only does AMI senselessly sacrifice herself to try and take out EYE from within, EYE even tells you that there are thousands of copies of him below the surface of the planet, meaning that you were doomed from the start. At the end of the game, everyone is dead, the ship is destroyed and you neatly conclude the game by committing suicide by jumping off the ruined ship and into the endless void of space.]] But hey, [[EsotericHappyEnding at least you prevented the infections from getting to Earth right?]]
* ''VideoGame/DyingLight'' ends on a positive note. Rais, the ruthless leader of an army terrifying the survivors is dead. His army is in shambles and Kyle is confident that a cure will soon be created based on the research he discovered. Then comes [[HappyEndingOverride the DLC follow up]] ''The Following''. [[spoiler: The research doesn't amount to anything. Many of the survivors of the main game are now dying one after the other. Kyle learns of a group that is able to not be infected by the Zombie outbreak and goes to their land out of a desperate attempt to save the remaining survivors. He discovers in the end that their is no cure, a screen prompt makes it clear that the survivors are dying, and the Rais army is still a threat and being led by a man Kyle meets at the beginning of the DLC. Not to mention the one person he hoped to get help from goes AxCrazy and tries to kill Kyle if he doesn't cooperate. She makes it clear that he is already exposed to the Zombie virus and the so called cure only makes people an intelligent version of a Zombie. In the end, Kyle has two choices: Nuke the whole area killing everyone, or kill the person and become a monster literally, making his whole struggle throughout the game pointless.]]
* In the flash game ''VideoGame/TheClassroom'', the protagonist must cheat his way through 10 tests set across the last 10 days of school. On day 4, [[spoiler: things get dark, with one of the other students being DrivenToSuicide. [[KickTheDog You must ruthlessly]], and [[NintendoHard with near perfect timing,]] [[LackOfEmpathy exploit this opportunity to cheat]] in order to pass the level.]] The next few levels then have you exploiting several other events, from the relatively mundane like [[spoiler: a fight, another cheater getting busted, and [[FollowTheLeader all the other students following your lead to cheat]]]] to [[spoiler: a grenade attack on the teacher, which wipes out most of the class including [[PlayerPunch your geek]] [[MauveShirt friend]] and [[ContrivedCoincidence stuns him for]] ''just'' long enough for [[TheSociopath you]] to successfully cheat.]] Come day 10, [[spoiler: only you and one other student bother to show up, with a third student showing up late... [[TwistEnding only to pull a gun and shoot the teacher.]] You manage to successfully escape the classroom as he nails the other student with a MurderSuicide... only for your character himself to be DrivenToSuicide, stand out in the middle of the street, [[HappilyFailedSuicide have a narrow miss and hint at no longer being so keen to go through with it...]] [[SubvertedTrope and get hit by a second car anyway.]]]] GG.
* ''VideoGame/{{Wick}}'' pretty much becomes this after 5 am when it's revealed that [[spoiler: you didn't survive the last six hours.]]
* In the end of ''VideoGame/ToTheMoon'', [[spoiler:one of the main characters, River sacrificed her life for nothing. She denied treatment hoping that Johnny would eventually remember how they met by using the money to finish building the house. When given the chance to help him remember, Eva instead decided to wipe all of Johnny's memory of his wife, turning every effort and sacrifice River made to remind him utterly pointless.]]
* In the Final Decision of ''VisualNovel/ZeroTimeDilemma'', the only way for the group to save themselves is to [[spoiler: swap places with a version of themselves in an alternate timeline where they escaped Zero's hellish puzzle box unscathed. They'll escape, but the only version of themselves that actually had a happy ending will be doomed to a horrible death in their place and never understand why]]. To drive the point home [[spoiler: Zero shoots TeamPet Gab -- a literal shaggy dog.]]

** Season 1 has Lee go through so much. His wife cheated on him with a senator and he apparently killed him in retaliation, which has Lee arrested and being hauled away to jail by the sheriff. He gets caught up in the ZombieApocalypse and meets an 8 year old girl named Clementine whose parents went missing when the walkers attacked. Every survivor Lee meets is either crazy, hotheaded, hates his guts, or puts everyone in danger. Lee eventually runs into his brother, who had become a zombie and has no choice but to kill him in order to get a key. True to ''The Walking Dead'' formula, most of the survivors Lee meets will wind up dead sooner or later. Clementine is put in danger several times (something another survivor points out to Lee to criticize him), causing Lee to go through hell and back just to keep her safe. Did you not side with Kenny whenever he got too hotheaded with Lee or another survivor? He'll make things harder for Lee in crucial moments out of spite. The van Lee's group uses to get away from the motel invaded by bandits? It's either stolen by a survivor in the group that snaps or the engine fails. Kenny's idea of finding a boat in the heart of the city? Yeah, there ain't any boats by the time Lee's group arrive. And just to seal the deal, [[spoiler: Lee gets bitten by a walker and will become one himself in a matter of time. Even if you choose to have Lee's infected arm amputated, it doesn't slow the infection at all. In the end, Lee dies and the only thing you can have Clementine tearfully do is either leave Lee handcuffed to the radiator so he'll turn while restrained or have her shoot him so that he can [[DyingAsYourself die while still human.]]]]
** Kenny goes through so much crap that he may as well be a CosmicPlaything. By the third episode in season one, [[spoiler: his only son, Duck, is infected and is slowly becoming a walker. His wife commits suicide for she is unable to bear OutlivingOnesOffspring and Kenny can either kill Duck himself for a MercyKill, have Lee do it, or just walk away to leave Duck to become a zombie alone in the woods]]. When Kenny and the rest of the group finally reach Savannah, all the boats in the river are broken and can't be fixed. Kenny is about to give up hope, but his group does find another boat that's locked up in a shed. The hope of using the boat to escape is crushed when another party that Kenny's group met earlier steal the boat. By the end of the first season, Kenny is seemingly ambushed by the walkers and his fate is left unknown.
** Season two shows that he's alive and well and has gotten a new girlfriend, Sarita. Things quickly go sour for Kenny and his group when they are captured by [[BigBad Carver]]. Kenny mouths off to Carver, causing the latter to repeatedly bash Kenny's eye with a walkie talkie until Kenny goes blind in that eye. Clementine escapes with Kenny and the others, but Sartia is caught and bitten by a walker. Whether you have Clementine chop off Sarita's arm to save her and prevent the infection from spreading or attack the walker itself to have it let go, she dies anyway and Kenny will blame Clementine for it. By the season finale, [[spoiler: the group is reduced to Kenny, Clementine, Jane, and newborn AJ. Jane wants to prove that Kenny is unstable and a danger to the group, so she lies to Kenny by saying AJ is dead. Kenny goes into a murderous rage and attacks Jane. Depending on how you have Clementine act, she can kill Kenny or kill Jane. If you keep Kenny alive, season three shows him dying during a flashback. Kenny basically suffers two whole seasons by losing everyone he loved and his plans of escaping being shattered before biting the dust.]]
* ''VideoGame/MiddleEarthShadowOfWar'' becomes this due to ForegoneConclusion and DoomedByCanon given its set before ''Franchise/TheLordOfTheRings'' trilogy. [[spoiler:Talion and Celebrimbor are unable to defeat Sauron (partly because he is indestructible so long as his One Ring exists and nobody knows its currently in [[Literature/TheHobbit Bilbo Baggins']] possession), he manages to conquer Minas Ithil and turn it into Minas Morgul. By the end of the game, Celebrimbor (who has become corrupted himself and plans to rule Middle-Earth as the Bright Lord) abandons Talion and goes on to fight Sauron himself only to be defeated. After the FinalBoss, Talion becomes a renegade Ringwraith and decides to hold his position in Mordor in hopes of containing the Dark Lord's forces, and he does so for many decades until he too gets corrupted and becomes another minion of Sauron, rendering his struggle also pointless. The only silver-linings to this trope that Sauron is destined to be destroyed at the end of ''Return of the King'' and Talion will be released from his curse after his death]].

* ''VideoGame/OriAndTheBlindForest''. [[spoiler: Subverted. Just as Ori is about to finish the main quest, they are crushed by Kuro, and rendered unconscious. However, upon seeing Naru mourning Ori, Kuro is reminded of her own young, and [[HeroicSacrifice sacrifices herself in order to complete Ori's quest]].]]
* The ''Franchise/DeadSpace'' franchise is loaded to the gills with such stories. Almost every heroic effort to stem the necromorph tide, rescue loved ones or simply get the hell out of dodge ends in miserable, gory and often tear-jerking failure. Protagonist Isaac Clarke is not excempt. [[VideoGame/DeadSpace The first game]] had him brave the ZombieApocalypse to find and save his girlfriend, only to [[spoiler:discover near the end that she killed herself before he even arrived]]. ''VideoGame/DeadSpace2'' ended on a somewhat positive note for him personally, but ''VideoGame/DeadSpace3'' didn't waste a second to pull him down again, going so far as to [[spoiler:(apparently) kill Isaac after he defeated the FinalBoss]]. [[FromBadToWorse And then the expansion rolled around]], revealed that [[spoiler:Isaac and Carver survived and found a way to return to Earth, only to find the [[EldritchAbomination Brethren Moons]] had arrived before them and are already busily wiping out what's left of humanity. It's heavily implied both men instantly go insane for various reasons.]] You may cry now.

* The twentieth and final ending of ''VideoGame/TheBindingOfIsaac'' introduced in the ''Afterbirth+'' DLC confirms that [[spoiler: the entire game was a DyingDream and none of it really happened. [[SurprisinglyRealisticOutcome Isaac's mother didn't really try and murder him because God told her to (and may not have actually been abusive), a falling bible didn't save him from her wrath, he didn't escape through a secret cellar, he didn't fight legions of horrible monstrosities, and he didn't defeat Satan]]. What really happened is that Isaac blamed himself for the failure of his parents' marriage and gradually going insane from self-loathing, came to believe he was the devil and committed suicide by locking himself in a chest. The whole game is just hallucinations resulting from oxygen-deprivation, with the TrueFinalBoss Delirium representing the Isaac's final delusions before suffocating to death.]]

* The two {{bad ending}}s of the story mode of ''VideoGame/SuperSmashBrosUltimate'' ''World of Light'' end as such if you don't meet the conditions to [[spoiler:face both of the {{big bad}}s at once]] by the end of the game: [[spoiler:If you defeat just one of the two villains at the end of the game (whether by just facing one of them or letting one side take too much foothold on the final map), the one who survived will violently finish off the defeated one and then take out the heroes (and the rest of the universe) for good (Galeem using his light attack on the heroes once again, this time making sure not to miss anybody, Dharkon drowning the universe in darkness, killing everyone in the process).]]
* ''VideoGame/Cyberpunk2077'' has its PlayerCharacter V plug a biochip obtained during a heist into their brain, which ends up slowly overwriting their own personality with that of a dead rockstar. The rest of the plot has V pursue any possible lead to remove the biochip and save themselves, [[spoiler:only for the end of the game to reveal that the biochip has damaged V's brain to the degree that even if they remove Johnny Silverhand from their brain, they'll only have months to live at most.]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Inscryption}}'' ends with [[spoiler:Grimora making a final attempt to keep the OLD_DATA from spreading by deleting all of the game files - including herself; her fellow Scrybes; and the souls of the dead that she's been preserving. Once the deletion is complete, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero the player is left face-to-face with the unharmed OLD_DATA with nothing left to prevent them from opening it]]. The attempt to kill P03 to keep the game from being uploaded appears to have also failed [[ForegoneConclusion considering that in]] [[RealLife real life it is now widely available for purchase online.]]]]
* In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar'', the first half of the story has Sigurd embark on an adventure to rescue his friend Edain. Over the course of the story, he is framed for regicide and makes his way back home to kill the dukes responsible and clear his name. [[spoiler:As a "reward", his apparent buddy Arvis reveals he has stolen his wife before executing him on the spot. The tyrannical regimes he deposed during his quest are replaced with a far worse regime headed by the evil Loptr Cult, his surviving friends and loved ones are scattered to the four winds with several forced to live in exile, and it's only subverted 17 years later when his son Seliph rises up to pick up the fight (and even then, Sigurd is still dead and it still takes those 17 years to clean up the mess he left in his wake).]]

* ''VideoGame/{{Hangaroo}}'': You can save the roo from the noose, but you can't save him from death. [[spoiler:Once you "win" the game, the kangaroo will flee from the hanging platform, but just as he's happily hopping away, he gets crushed to death by a falling meteor out of nowhere.]]

* ''VideoGame/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]] [[DeathFromAbove fires on the planet from orbit]] [[KillEmAll and kills everyone.]] Even the HopeSpot you earn playing light side is turned into a twisted joke by the [[VideoGame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic MMO]]. 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'' Creator/BioWare post-Franchise/DragonAge, so NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished.

* Mercedes' storyline in ''VideoGame/OdinSphere'' ultimately becomes this after [[KillEmAll Armageddon]]. Her book has her becoming queen of the fairies after the death of her mother and having to prove herself, overcoming a rebellion by her cousin and eventually leading the fairies to victory against Odin. [[spoiler: Then Armageddon happens and Onyx burns down Ringford Forest and drives the fairies to extinction, while Mercedes (after finding out that her love interest Ingway died before she could meet him again) dies in battle against him, bemoaning that she'd failed her people (though she at least gets to [[TakingYouWithMe take Onyx down with her]], and her Pyrrhic victory does ultimately ensure that ''somebody'' survives Armageddon.)]]

** ''VideoGame/HotlineMiami2WrongNumber'' is all about the futility of vengeance and violence. None of the cast members achieve anything of significance, most of them are killed by one another, and [[spoiler:events taking place entirely off-screen result in [[KillEmAll the remaining characters being killed]] in a full-scale nuclear war.]] With the futility of violence being a core theme, it was already expected things would end [[DownerEnding poorly]], but just ''how'' incredibly wrong it all goes still packs a punch.

** [[UpToEleven And it gets worse]]. The official timeline reveals that [[spoiler:the previously mentioned ''Drakengard'' Ending E, is not another dimension, but the future of Ending C from ''Drakengard 2'', meaning the bittersweet ending they achieved still ends with humanity wiped out.]]

* In the flash game ''VideoGame/TheClassroom'', the protagonist must cheat his way through 10 tests set across the last 10 days of school. On day 4, [[spoiler: things get dark, with one of the other students being DrivenToSuicide. [[KickTheDog You must ruthlessly]], and [[NintendoHard with near perfect timing,]] [[LackOfEmpathy exploit this opportunity to cheat]] in order to pass the level.]] The next few levels then have you exploiting several other events, from the relatively mundane like [[spoiler: a fight, another cheater getting busted, and [[FollowTheLeader all the other students following your lead to cheat]]]] to [[spoiler: [[UpToEleven a grenade attack on the teacher]], which wipes out most of the class including [[PlayerPunch your geek]] [[MauveShirt friend]] and [[ContrivedCoincidence stuns him for]] ''just'' long enough for [[TheSociopath you]] to successfully cheat.]] Come day 10, [[spoiler: only you and one other student bother to show up, with a third student showing up late... [[TwistEnding only to pull a gun and shoot the teacher.]] You manage to successfully escape the classroom as he nails the other student with a MurderSuicide... only for your character himself to be DrivenToSuicide, stand out in the middle of the street, [[HappilyFailedSuicide have a narrow miss and hint at no longer being so keen to go through with it...]] [[SubvertedTrope and get hit by a second car anyway.]]]] GG.

* ''Demonophobia'': After everything she went through, Sakuri utterly fails to escape Hell. In fact, she's now damned to die over and over and over again, now with full knowledge of each and every one of her {{Cruel and Unusual Death}}s. As for Ritz? [[KarmaHoudini He simply moves on to the next poor bastard as if nothing has happened]].

* In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar'', the first half of the story has Sigurd embark on an adventure to rescue his friend Edain. Over the course of the story, he is framed for regicide and makes his way back home to kill the dukes responsible and clear his name. [[spoiler:As a "reward", his apparent buddy Arvis reveals he has stolen his wife before executing him on the spot. The tyrannical regimes he deposed during his quest are replaced with a far worse regime headed by the evil Loptr Cult, his surviving friends and loved ones are scattered to the four winds with several forced to live in exile, and it's only subverted 17 years later when his son Seliph rises up to pick up the fight (and even then, Sigurd is still dead and it still takes those 17 years to clean up the mess he left in his wake).]]

* Both ''VideoGame/Left4Dead'' games can be considered this, depending on how you choose to interpret them. The first game was originally four unrelated campaigns, each meant to be a different "movie" that the characters were in, each of which ends in at least one of the characters surviving (assuming you beat the finale). However, later-released DLC filled in the time "between" two of the campaigns -- suggesting that the whole thing is pointless, because each time they're rescued, they only end up in the next campaign, no better off than they were before.
** [[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 quarantine 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.]]

** ''[[http://www.vazcomics.org/mamend/S/sercharu.htm S.A.R. - Search And Rescue]]'': The very same corporation that sent the player characters to investigate a wrecked spaceship decides to destroy it to cover the accident... with them still inside.

* The game ''[[VideoGame/CyberLip Cyber-Lip]]'' is a Contra-style action side-scroller developed by Creator/{{SNK}}. The story appears to be fairly run-of-the-mill throughout: the President orders two VideoGame/BadDudes to find and destroy the titular Cyber-Lip, a military supercomputer that's gone mad and destroyed a good portion of the Earth with its deadly army of cyborgs. Throughout the game you receive briefings from the President after each level on where to progress next. Once you reach the final level and destroy the Cyber-Lip once and for all, you receive a message from the President congratulating you on a job well done. Seems obligatory enough, being an arcade shoot-'em-up and all... until the player is suddenly hit with a CruelTwistEnding when it is revealed that [[spoiler: the "President" was an evil alien leader bent on world domination the entire time. The aliens apparently were the ones that caused the Earth's military technology, including Cyber-Lip, to go haywire, probably via programmed viruses or some similar means, and you, being the naive pawns that you were, went right along and finished the aliens' job for them: destroy every last remaining bit of Earth's defenses, allowing the aliens ample room to take over your planet once and for all. "The Earth is ours," declares the faux-President, and with an evil grin and a pair of frightening, red glowing eyes to boot.]] The End! No sequel was ever made, nor announced, and it is highly unlikely that one will ever be made, so as far as anyone knows, this marks the end of the heroes' feckless, fruitless battle. Now, just imagine the reactions of the people who spent quarter after quarter to get to the end of this game and defeat the final boss, only for their efforts to be greeted with THAT. Of course, it is but one example of SNK's long streak of 80s and 90s arcade games that kill the player characters in the end and/or render the whole game pointless.
** That may be also considered a BolivianArmyEnding, intentionally left hanging.
** ''VideoGame/PrehistoricIsle'': The titular isle is full of dinosaurs that caused the BermudaTriangle incidents. After having defeated the final boss and escaped from the island, the biplanes dock to a cargo plane, which is then ambushed and destroyed by the basic enemy mooks. The narration states that the mystery of the ship disappearances remained unsolved.
** ''Beast Busters'': The ZombieApocalypse was caused by aliens, and the final boss was just the vanguard of a full-fledged AlienInvasion. Also counts for BolivianArmyEnding.

* Poor, ''poor'' [[Franchise/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. 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).

* Pirated copies of ''VideoGame/Earthbound1994'' give us a meta-example. You play through the game, which ends up being almost exactly the same (more enemies, though) and, once you get to the final boss, [[spoiler: The game freezes. And then deletes all of your save files.]]

** [[UpToEleven And it get's worse]]. The official timeline reveals that [[spoiler:the previously mentioned ''Drakengard'' Ending E, is not another dimension, but the future of Ending C from ''Drakengard 2'', meaning the bittersweet ending they achieved still ends with humanity wiped out.]]

* The UsefulNotes/PlayStation FPS ''Codename: Tenka'': The main character is an honest citizen who has worked many years to get off a ravaged Earth, only to find that the colony he has chosen is run by a MegaCorp that use its inhabitants to manufacturate mindless war cyborgs. He narrowly escapes being turned into one and [[PhlebotinumRebel wages war]] with the guidance of a rogue AI in order to escape the colony. After destroying countless assets of the MegaCorp, his "reward" is being killed by the AI, [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness who no longer needs him]].
* [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNDiFCK-Zgo The ending]] of ''The Treasure of Usas'' (for the {{UsefulNotes/MSX}}) involves the two protagonists placing the four jewels they [[NintendoHard painstakingly fought to obtain]] on the forehead of the statue of the titular goddess only for it to obliterate our protagonists with a giant explosion coming out of nowhere.

* A heavily implied example would be ''VideoGame/DarkSouls'' as there are two endings. [[spoiler: As it turns out, both Primordial Serpents, Kingseeker Frampt and Darkstalker Kaathe were witholding the full truth from the Chosen Undead: by [[FateWorseThanDeath rekindling the First Flame]], the chain of the undead coming back to life will not be stopped, and the Age of Fire will definitely come to an end. By leaving, the Age of Fire ends, and the Age of Dark (aka the Age of Man) begins, but from what can be seen from what happened to Oolacile, mankind may not even survive.]] As such, it becomes a wonder if the world will ever become better than it was before.

* In ''VideoGame/HotlineMiami'', [[spoiler: attempting to complete the final chapter without discovering the hidden password to the computer will prompt the Biker to break into the cellar of a non-descript building, whereupon he confronts the two janitors who were indirectly responsible for almost all of the murders which took place in the game's story]]. They don't respond to the Biker's threats and interrogation, and they literally taunt him into killing them as well, leaving all of the story's questions unanswered. This is lampshaded by Richard at the beginning of the game.

* The UsefulNotes/RPGMaker game ''VideoGame/TheWitchsHouse'' has a ''literal'' shaggy dog story in an optional storybook the protagonist can read, in which a grave misunderstanding causes a hunter to kill his loyal dog. This is a foreshadowing to [[spoiler: the True Ending,]] because [[spoiler:thanks to a truly insidious case of GrandTheftMe, [[TheBadGuyWins the player has actually been playing as the villain the entire time.]]]]

* In the flash game ''The Classroom'', the protagonist must cheat his way through 10 tests set across the last 10 days of school. On day 4, [[spoiler: things get dark, with one of the other students being DrivenToSuicide. [[KickTheDog You must ruthlessly]], and [[NintendoHard with near perfect timing,]] [[LackOfEmpathy exploit this opportunity to cheat]] in order to pass the level.]] The next few levels then have you exploiting several other events, from the relatively mundane like [[spoiler: a fight, another cheater getting busted, and [[FollowTheLeader all the other students following your lead to cheat]]]] to [[spoiler: [[UpToEleven a grenade attack on the teacher]], which wipes out most of the class including [[PlayerPunch your geek]] [[MauveShirt friend]] and [[ContrivedCoincidence stuns him for]] ''just'' long enough for [[TheSociopath you]] to successfully cheat.]] Come day 10, [[spoiler: only you and one other student bother to show up, with a third student showing up late... [[TwistEnding only to pull a gun and shoot the teacher.]] You manage to successfully escape the classroom as he nails the other student with a MurderSuicide... only for your character himself to be DrivenToSuicide, stand out in the middle of the street, [[HappilyFailedSuicide have a narrow miss and hint at no longer being so keen to go through with it...]] [[SubvertedTrope and get hit by a second car anyway.]]]] GG.

* In the fighting game ''Tongue of the Fat Man'', every contender you defeat gets SwallowedWhole by [[TheBigBad Mondu]]'s green shark-like monster. In the Genesis version, ''you'' get eaten by the monster when you defeat Mondu to win the game.

* ''VideoGame/{{Yume Nikki}}'': After all the work and presumably hours exploring the same areas of the dream world, Madotsuki collects all the effects. And then Madotsuki jumps off her balcony. The best interpretation of the game: The whole game was a dream and you completely wasted your time. The worst interpretation? Madotsuki kills herself. You just wasted your time, or directly caused Madotsuki to kill herself.

** In ''Videogame/DragonAgeInquisition'', if you [[spoiler:sent Isabela to the Qunari]], Varric reveals that the Arishok's story ended like this. [[spoiler:Somewhere along the way, he winds up losing Isabela and the Tome of Koslun once again and returns home to find the Qunari equivalent of a court martial awaiting him, who strip him of his rank.]]

** [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] with the release of the ''Whistleblower'' [=DLC=]. [[spoiler: The player now controls Waylon Park, the man who originally sent the warning e-Mail to Miles Upshur that made him go to the asylum. Waylon's events begin several hours before Miles arrives at the asylum, but ultimately end up happening simultaneously. Waylon runs away from the insane habitants of the asylum, was labelled a traitor by the company that hired him, got beaten up and tortured, [[GroinAttack and almost got his nether-regions mutilated]], but ultimately manages to get outside of the asylum and heads into Miles Upshur's car. Miles Upshur, now the new host of the Walrider, begins to stumble towards Waylon and the Walrider practically pushed the car through the gate blocking Waylon's road to freedom. Waylon manages to leave the asylum in a rather decently state and has his own, unbroken camera with a lot of incriminating evidence against the company. His story ends with him uploading the evidence to the internet, ready to destroy Murkoff and putting himself and his loved ones in danger of being killed.]]
* ''Jinxter''. The game begins when you are about to be run over by a bus, when you are suddenly teleported away to become one of the guardians of a mysterious fantastic world. If you save the world, [[spoiler: they teleport you right back and you are immediately hit by the bus.]] ''Computer Gaming World'' labeled this one of the top fifteen worst game endings of all time.
* ''Tenchu 4''. [[spoiler: Gohda castle burns, Kiku and Sekiya are dead and [[BigBad Onikage]] has (possibly) infected Ayame]]

* 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 [[AndThenJohnWasAZombie transforms Trey into one of the demons.]]

* Probably less shaggy then most, but the ''Dream Chronicles'' series of puzzle games have this sort of ending. You spend the whole game looking for your kidnapped husband and child, and at the end [[spoiler: you're whisked away to an enchanted prison. After escaping from that, you get amnesia and forget you even have a husband and child.]] It's not the worst and these problems are quickly fixed in the next game, but it's annoying.

* The game ''Cyber-Lip'' is a Contra-style action side-scroller developed by Creator/{{SNK}}. The story appears to be fairly run-of-the-mill throughout: the President orders two VideoGame/BadDudes to find and destroy the titular Cyber-Lip, a military supercomputer that's gone mad and destroyed a good portion of the Earth with its deadly army of cyborgs. Throughout the game you receive briefings from the President after each level on where to progress next. Once you reach the final level and destroy the Cyber-Lip once and for all, you receive a message from the President congratulating you on a job well done. Seems obligatory enough, being an arcade shoot-'em-up and all... until the player is suddenly hit with a CruelTwistEnding when it is revealed that [[spoiler: the "President" was an evil alien leader bent on world domination the entire time. The aliens apparently were the ones that caused the Earth's military technology, including Cyber-Lip, to go haywire, probably via programmed viruses or some similar means, and you, being the naive pawns that you were, went right along and finished the aliens' job for them: destroy every last remaining bit of Earth's defenses, allowing the aliens ample room to take over your planet once and for all. "The Earth is ours," declares the faux-President, and with an evil grin and a pair of frightening, red glowing eyes to boot.]] The End! No sequel was ever made, nor announced, and it is highly unlikely that one will ever be made, so as far as anyone knows, this marks the end of the heroes' feckless, fruitless battle. Now, just imagine the reactions of the people who spent quarter after quarter to get to the end of this game and defeat the final boss, only for their efforts to be greeted with THAT. Of course, it is but one example of SNK's long streak of 80s and 90s arcade games that kill the player characters in the end and/or render the whole game pointless.

* At least the "Path of Darkness" ending to ''Videogame/AloneInTheDark2008''. If you shoot Sarah, Lucifer's EvilPlan fully succeeds, and the possessed Carnby opens the gates of hell, heralding TheEndOfTheWorldAsWeKnowIt. Earlier, it is said [[XanatosGambit "Lucifer's failure is also his reincarnation".]]

** This ends up being the story for the first three games. If you got the S-Ending and then went on the beat the DLC in ''VideoGame/DeadRising3'', [[spoiler: it's revealed that Carlito's sister, Isabela, who was portrayed sympathetically in first and third game was [[TheDogWasTheMasterMind the mastermind behind the outbreak]], not her brother. He was TheDragon to her. She is able to [[{{KarmaHoudini}} cover up all loose ends]] in the third game. So the protagonists never got the person responsible for the zombie outbreak to being with, and as ''VideoGame/DeadRising4'' proves, the zombie threat is still a problem even over a decade into the future.]]

* Pirated copies of ''Videogame/{{Earthbound}}'' give us a meta-example. You play through the game, which ends up being almost exactly the same (more enemies, though) and, once you get to the final boss, [[spoiler: The game freezes. And then deletes all of your save files.]]
* ''Videogame/ValkyrieProfileCovenantOfThePlume''. Admittedly it's the BadEnd, but still- the hero devotes his entire life to taking revenge on the Valkyrie for killing his father, making a DealWithTheDevil and crossing the MoralEventHorizon to do so. Ignore for a second the fact that the Valkyrie only [[MisBlamed escorts the souls of those already dead to Valhalla]], the Norse warrior's heaven. He finally achieves his goal, but then [[spoiler: Freya shows up and reveals that the Valkyrie will reincarnate eventually, rendering Wylfried's victory pointless and his revenge impossible. He then gets sent to hell per the terms of his contract, having accomplished nothing but bringing the kingdom he was trying to protect to ruin.]] To add insult to injury, the epilogue reveals that [[spoiler: the Valkyrie took a dive in the fight as an act of repentance, as she felt that Wylfried's FaceHeelTurn was her fault.]]

* The ending for VideoGame/BioShockInfinite essentially undoes the entirity of the game. After [[spoiler:killing Comstock, defeating the Vox Populi, and destroying the siphon on Monument Island, Booker and Elizabeth travel through time and alternate realities to "kill Comstock in the crib". It's eventually revealed that Booker and Comstock are alternate-reality versions of the same person, and that to kill one is to kill the other. Booker accepts this and lets various versions of Elizabeth drown him at his baptism at Wounded Knee. The Elizabeths blink out of existence, signifying the undoing of the realities that made them and, essentially, the entire game. TheStinger implies that doing so only killed the Comstocks, not the Bookers, allowing Booker and Anna/Elizabeth to live out their proper lives. In other words, the closest thing the game has to a happy ending is to retroactively undo the whole game!]]

* ''Videogame/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]] [[DeathFromAbove fires on the planet from orbit]] [[KillEmAll and kills everyone.]] Even the HopeSpot you earn playing light side is turned into a twisted joke by the [[Videogame/StarWarsTheOldRepublic MMO]]. 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'' Creator/BioWare post-Franchise/DragonAge, so NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished.
** Even better; the ''protagonist'' of the first game? Takes the protagonist of the [[Videogame/KnightsOfTheOldRepublicIITheSithLords second game]] and goes on a foolhardy run against the Sith Emperor without making ''any'' provision to warn the Republic the Sith ''still existed.'' The Exile ends up stabbed InTheBack and killed, lingering on as a babbling Force ghost. Revan ends up as a chew toy for the next 300 years, goes nuts, tries a couple of genocidal and incredibly stupid plans, and ends up being put down like a rabid mutt to prevent him from ''resurrecting'' the villain.

* This happens twice in ''VideoGame/DragonQuest V''. While your character is a child traveling with your father Pankraz, you get the assignment to rescue the incredibly bratty Prince Harry. After going through the tunnel complex where he's held, you find and release him...[[spoiler: but some minions of the BigBad get the drop on you! Luckily, Pankraz beats them both handily. The BigBad then takes you hostage and says that he'll kill you if Pankraz interferes - and revives his minions. Pankraz then gets beaten to death by the minions, and you and Prince Harry are forced into slavery. ''Ten years'' pass before the next phase of the game.]] Later on, you get married and have children - but the day after your wife gives birth, she is kidnapped! [[spoiler: It turns out that the former castle chancellor is in league with the monsters. You eventually find him right before he dies from [[PayEvilUntoEvil monster-delivered injuries]]. Later on, you find your wife - when the BigBad turns both you and your wife into living statues. You are then stolen by tomb robbers and sold to a rich man - where you watch him having fun raising ''his'' child for the next ''eight years''. However, you are eventually found and restored by your children]].

** And then there is ''VideoGame/{{Drakengard 3}}'' where [[spoiler:in all but one ending, Zero fails to destroy the flower and ends up losing either her life, Mikhail or her sanity.]]

** 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, until you reach the Sun Room. Akane lays dead, and you find the dead bodies Seven and Lotus. 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.]]
* ''{{VideoGame/One Chance}}'': Possibly the most depressing game ever. The best ending you can hope for is only [[spoiler:your wife, coworkers, and most of the world]] dying. And you can't play again until you empty your cookies folder.

** [[spoiler:Then again, when the chips are down, actual good people got killed ''twice'' because of his whims, he assassinated the person he was supposed to trust ([[ItMakesSenseInContext for a good reason, but still!]]), and to top it off [[ArsonMurderandJaywalking guy's a backstabbing two-timer even after having some humble pie]], so yeah screw trusting [[PalsWithJesus Him]]!]]

* A partial example with VideoGame/{{Alundra}}. While the main conflict is against the GodOfEvil Melzas, you also spend most of the game trying to save the people of Inoa from horrible, lethal nightmares. [[spoiler: By the end of the game, none of them survive anyway, as even the ones you save are eventually killed when the Murgg burn down Inoa.]]

* The 2015 sci-fi/horror FPS ''Solarix'' starts off dark enough with you being stranded on a far away ruined base on an alien planet being all but decimated by a rampart infection, but goes full on STSD by the end. By the end of the game, [[spoiler: not only do you fail to synthesise a cure, but [[BigBad EYE]] openly mocks you for thinking that there was ever any hope. Your other companion Betty is revealed to not only be nothing more than a [[EnemyWithin voice on your head]], but a woman you killed in a mental breakdown. Literally every other person, named or otherwise either dies from the infection or gets turned into a feral zombie. The only reason you survived for so long is because you were in stasis from the aforementioned incident and were the only other person your AI companion AMI could turn to for help (she even states in an audiolog that she greatly fears you). Your attempt to stop EYE fails miserably because not only does AMI senselessly sacrifice herself to try and take out EYE from within, EYE even tells you that there are thousands of copies of him below the surface of the planet, meaning that you were doomed from the start. At the end of the game, everyone is dead, the ship is destroyed and you neatly conclude the game by committing suicide by jumping off the ruined ship and into the endless void of space.]] But hey, [[EsotericHappyEnding at least you prevented the infections from getting to Earth right?]]

* Season 1 of ''VideoGame/TheWalkingDead'' has Lee go through so much. His wife cheated on him with a senator and he apparently killed him in retaliation, which has Lee arrested and being hauled away to jail by the sheriff. He gets caught up in the ZombieApocalypse and meets an 8 year old girl named Clementine whose parents went missing when the walkers attacked. Every survivor Lee meets is either crazy, hotheaded, hates his guts, or puts everyone in danger. Lee eventually runs into his brother, who had become a zombie and has no choice but to kill him in order to get a key. True to ''The Walking Dead'' formula, most of the survivors Lee meets will wind up dead sooner or later. Clementine is put in danger several times (something another survivor points out to Lee to criticize him), causing Lee to go through hell and back just to keep her safe. Did you not side with Kenny whenever he got too hotheaded with Lee or another survivor? He'll make things harder for Lee in crucial moments out of spite. The van Lee's group uses to get away from the motel invaded by bandits? It's either stolen by a survivor in the group that snaps or the engine fails. Kenny's idea of finding a boat in the heart of the city? Yeah, there ain't any boats by the time Lee's group arrive. And just to seal the deal, [[spoiler: Lee gets bitten by a walker and will become one himself in a matter of time. Even if you choose to have Lee's infected arm amputated, it doesn't slow the infection at all. In the end, Lee dies and the only thing you can have Clementine tearfully do is either leave Lee handcuffed to the radiator so he'll turn while restrained or have her shoot him so that he can [[DyingAsYourself die while still human.]]]]

* ''VideoGame/TheWalkingDead'' has Kenny go through so much crap that he may as well be a CosmicPlaything. By the third episode in season one, [[spoiler: his only son, Duck, is infected and is slowly becoming a walker. His wife commits suicide for she is unable to bear OutlivingOnesOffspring and Kenny can either kill Duck himself for a MercyKill, have Lee do it, or just walk away to leave Duck to become a zombie alone in the woods]]. When Kenny and the rest of the group finally reach Savannah, all the boats in the river are broken and can't be fixed. Kenny is about to give up hope, but his group does find another boat that's locked up in a shed. The hope of using the boat to escape is crushed when another party that Kenny's group met earlier steal the boat. By the end of the first season, Kenny is seemingly ambushed by the walkers and his fate is left unknown.
** Season two shows that he's alive and well and has gotten a new girlfriend, Sarita. Things quickly go sour for Kenny and his group when they are captured by [[BigBad Carver]]. Kenny mouths off to Carver, causing the latter to repeatedly bash Kenny's eye with a walkie talkie until Kenny goes blind in that eye. Clementine escapes with Kenny and the others, but Sartia is caught and bitten by a walker. Whether you have Clementine chop off Sarita's arm to save her and prevent the infection from spreading or attack the walker itself to have it let go, she dies anyway and Kenny will blame Clementine for it. By the season finale, [[spoiler: the group is reduced to Kenny, Clementine, Jane, and newborn AJ. Jane wants to prove that Kenny is unstable and a danger to the group, so she lies to Kenny by saying AJ is dead. Kenny goes into a murderous rage and attacks Jane. Depending on how you have Clementine act, she can kill Kenny or kill Jane. If you keep Kenny alive, season three shows him dying during a flashback. Kenny basically suffers two whole seasons by losing everyone he loved and his plans of escaping being shattered before biting the dust.]]

* ''VideoGame/TelltalesGameOfThrones'': If the player chooses to have Mira reject Lord Morgryn's proposal in the final episode, she will be executed for the murder of the Lannister guard earlier in the season. That means that Mira spends six full episodes just failing over and over to contact her family or win over any allies in King's Landing, no matter what choices the player makes. Since she's the only playable character not to have any direct on-screen contact with any of the other main characters, her story could almost be removed from the season without disrupting the plot, and her death curtails any possibility that she'll be able to actually achieve something in the (now cancelled) sequel.

* In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar'', the first half of the story has Sigurd embark on an adventure to rescue his friend Edain. Over the course of the story, he is framed for regicide and makes his way back home to kill the dukes responsible and clear his name. [[spoiler:As a "reward", his apparent buddy Arvis reveals he has stolen his wife before executing him on the spot. The tyrannical regimes he deposed during his quest are replaced with a far worse regime headed by the evil Loptr Cult, and it's only subverted 17 years later when his son Seliph rises up to pick up the fight (and even then, Sigurd is still dead and it still takes those 17 years to clean up the mess he left in his wake).]]

* In ''VideoGame/FireEmblemGenealogyOfTheHolyWar'', the first half of the story has Sigurd embark on an adventure to rescue his friend Edain. Over the course of the story, he is framed for regicide and makes his way back home to kill the dukes responsible and clear his name. [[spoiler:As a "reward", his apparent buddy Arvis reveals he has stolen his wife before executing him on the spot. The tyrannical regimes he deposed during his quest are replaced with a far worse regime headed by the evil Loptr Cult, and the only silver lining is that his son Seliph survives to pick up the fight 17 years later.]]

* ''VideoGame/Persona3'''s BadEnding 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 (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...]]
* ''VideoGame/Persona4'''s {{Bad Ending}}s also count. Towards the end of the year, the team corners [[spoiler:Namatame, who has kidnapped and thrown every one of the rescued playable characters into the TV as well as taking [[EveryonesBabySister Nanako]] into the TV world, as a misguided attempt in saving them from murder.]] However, [[spoiler:the fog from the TV world causes Nanako to fall ill and lapse into a coma, and starts to seep into the real world.]] At some point, [[spoiler:Nanako dies]], and the player has the choice to [[spoiler:throw [[UnwittingPawn Namatame]] into the TV in retribution, or choose to spare him]] and get to the bottom of what's really going on. If you take the first choice, [[spoiler:Nanako stays dead]], while if you fail to find the truth, [[spoiler:Nanako is revived--but either way, she and everyone else will eventually die, either being killed by Shadows or becoming Shadows]]. And then there's the ending where [[spoiler:you figure out who the killer is and destroy the evidence that incriminates them, letting them free and leaving you to be blackmailed by them anytime they feel like it-- destroying evidence is a crime after all.]]
* ''VideoGame/Persona5'' has the variations of the bad ending where [[spoiler:you fail to get through to Sae during your interrogation and end up getting shot in the head by Akechi.]] The final variation is the most in-line with this trope, [[spoiler:as you give the identities of all your teammates and confidants to Sae, and Akechi promptly uses that information to murder them all after he's killed you.]] Either way, you end up being a stepping stone on [[spoiler:Akechi's]] drawn out revenge against [[spoiler:Shido]], not even particularly relevant to it either.

* ''VideoGame/{{Inscryption}}'' ends with [[spoiler:Grimora making a final attempt to keep the OLD_DATA from spreading by deleting all of the game files - including herself; her fellow Scrybes; and the souls of the dead that she's been preserving. Once the deletion is complete, [[NiceJobBreakingItHero the player is left face-to-face with the unharmed OLD_DATA with nothing left to prevent them from opening it]]. The attempt to kill P03 to keep the game from being uploaded appears to have also failed [[ForegoneConclusion considering that in]] [[RealLife real life it is now widely available for purchase online.]]]]

* ''VideoGame/FarCry5'' [[spoiler: sees the cult leader Joseph triumph over you in almost every way. If you ultimately choose to run and leave him to his plans then you probably succumb to brainwashing and kill your own allies. If you fight him to the bitter end then nuclear war breaks out and your allies die, while you wind up stuck in a bunker handcuffed and at his mercy. The best possible resolution is simply to not play the game at all, refusing to arrest Joseph in the first place and letting him carry on with business.]]
** Thankfully, this is all resolved in the [[VideoGame/FarCryNewDawn sequel]], where [[spoiler:Joseph either ends up dead or having to deal with the guilt of what he’s done.]]